SfieMANWHO 
BUCKED    UP 


ARTHUR  HOWARD 

932&MAN 
WHO  DID  IT 


The  Man  Who  Bucked  Up 


THE 

Man  Who  Bucked  Up 

A  Fact    Story 


By 
ARTHUR  HOWARD 


GABDEN    CITY  KEW    YORK 

DOUBLEDAY.  PAGE  &  COMPANY 
1912 


Copyright,  1912,  by 

THE  McCLURE  PUBLICATIONS,  Incorporated 
New  York 

Copyright,  1912,  by 

DOUBLEDAY,  PAGE  &  COMPANY 

All  rights  reserved,  including  that  of 

translation  into  foreign  languages, 

including  the  Scandinavian 


TO 
WILLIAM   H.   SANBORN- 

AND 

G.  EDWIN  ALLEN 
"  BILL  "  AND  "  ED  " 


2136304 


The  Man  Who  Bucked  Up 


The  Man   Who   Bucked  Up 

CHAPTER  I 

WHEN  I  signed  my  name  to  the  check 
at  Sherry's  on  August  21,  1908,  I 
realized  there  was  no  more  Sherry's 
for    me.     Perhaps    that    accounted    for    the 
excellent  appetite  I  had.     I  ordered,  I  remem- 
ber, oysters,  egg  aurore,  a  squab  and  heart-of- 
lettuce  salad.     Then  I  had  a  demi-tasse  and 
my  special  Havana  cigar. 

As  I  rose  and  passed  out  of  the  big  dining- 
room,  the  waiters  stood  at  attention.  I  had 
been  a  good  customer  of  Sherry's.  I  was 
something  of  a  specialist  in  dining.  In  three 
years  my  bills  in  that  one  restaurant  had  been 
over  seven  thousand  dollars. 

131 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

Just  for  the  irony  of  it,  I  passed  a  dollar  to 
the  head  waiter;  the  boy  who  handed  me  my 
hat  and  coat  took  the  quarter  I  handed  him 
without  a  word. 

And  so  I  left  Sherry's  with  the  remains  of 
my  last  twenty-five  dollars  in  my  pocket  and 
walked  down  Fifth  Avenue  swinging  my  cane 
like  the  rest  of  them. 

I  was  through;  and  I  knew  I  was  through. 
It  had  been  months  coming,  and  I  had  settled 
it  once  and  for  all.  I  had  taken  one  more 
plunge  in  Wall  Street;  it  was  one  grand  .and 
glorious  dip,  and  it  went  against  me.  I  was 
long  some  five  thousand  shares;  that  is,  the 
brokers  had  five  hundred  thousand  dollars 
par  of  stocks  for  me.  They  sold  me  out  and 
I  was  done. 

The  final  interview  with  my  father,  held 
before  luncheon,  was  very  painful  on  both 
sides;  stormy  on  my  part  because  I  was  like 

[4] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

a  rat  driven  into  a  corner;  kindly  on  his  part, 
because  he  realized  more  than  I  did  the  dread- 
ful position  in  which  he  saw  me.  To  my 
statement  that  he  owed  me  twenty -five  dol- 
lars, he  acquiesced  without  a  word;  and  if  I 
recollect  correctly,  there  were  tears  in  his 
eyes  as  he  laid  his  hand  on  my  shoulder  saying, 
"I  am  sorry  for  you,  my  boy,  but  I  cannot 
help  you  any  more." 

I  knew  that  father  did  not  owe  me  the 
twenty -five  dollars,  and  he  knew  it  also;  but, 
as  is  too  often  the  case,  it  is  a  habit  of  sons  to 
make  such  requests  of  good  fathers. 

My  father  was  Joseph  P.  Howard  of  How- 
ard &  Co,  the  well-known  New  York  jewellers. 
During  the  civil  war  he  had  been  a  partner 
in  Tiffany  &  Co.,  starting  out  for  himself 
in  1866  under  the  name  of  Howard  &  Co. 
His  first  store  was  near  City  Hall  on  Broad- 
way, moving  to  Broadway  and  Tenth  Street, 

[51 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

later  occupying  the  store  where  Huyler  is 
now  at  Seventeeth  Street  and  Broadway. 
My  father  was  the  first  retail  merchant  to  open 
a  store  on  Fifth  Avenue,  moving  there  in 
1871,  and  had  been  there  since. 

That  afternoon  I  sailed  alone  in  the  Fall 
River  boat  for  Boston.  Why  Boston?  I 
really  don't  know.  One  place  seemed  as  good 
as  another  for  me  then.  But  I  was  through 
with  New  York  —  the  place  where  I  was  born 
and  where  my  life  had  been.  I  walked  the 
deck  until  ten  o'clock  and  reflected. 

I  was  thirty-eight  years  old  and  a  failure. 
I  had  had  my  day.  In  the  past  twenty  years 
I  had  had  money  left  me  three  times.  And  . 
now  I  was  leaving  it  all.  Behind  me  were 
debts  of  nearly  one  hundred  thousand  dollars 
more;  my  assets  were  the  contents  of  my 
travelling-bag  and  the  remnants  of  the  twenty- 
five  dollars  from  my  father. 

[61 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

There  were  two  men  I  knew  on  board. 
Twice  Colfax  had  passed  me  on  the  deck  and 
twice  he  had  bowed  —  good  old  Colfax! 
One  of  my  most  constant  companions  in  New 
York,  one  of  my  staunchest  admirers,  and 
one  of  those  who  believed  in  me.  He  did  not 
want  to  ask  me  where  I  was  going,  and  I 
could  not  have  told  him  if  he  had  asked. 
Libby,  my  broker,  in  whose  office  I  had 
dropped  sixty-eight  thousand  dollars,  was  on 
the  boat,  too. 

It  was  about  eleven  o'clock  when  I  heard, 
from  my  stateroom,  a  man's  voice  on  the  deck 
saying:  "I  guess  Howard  is  up  against  it 
hard  this  time." 

I  raised  my  head  from  the  pillow.  It  was 
Libby  talking  to  Colfax. 

"My  people  were  carrying  three  thousand 
shares  of  stock  for  him,  and  we  sold  him  out. 
He  was  eighty  thousand  dollars  in  the  hole. 

[7] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

His  father  came  up  with  thirty  thousand 
dollars,  and  we  took  a  mortgage  on  his  home. 
Bad  business  all  around,  and  it  is  not  over 
yet;  there  is  still  due  us  a  matter  of  some  ten 
or  twelve  thousand  dollars." 

"Howard  was  a  good  fellow,"  said  Colfax's 
voice.  "Dreadfully  reckless.  I  remember 
one  great  time  he  gave  Maud  and  me  at  Del- 
monico's.  It  was  nine  o'clock  when  we 
finished  dinner,  and  Maud  made  some  chance 
remark  about  the  theatre.  Nothing  would 
do  for  Howard  but  to  rush  us  off  to  the 
theatre  in  his  usual  style  —  taxicab,  box,  and 
supper  afterward." 

"Perfect  damn  fool,"  said  Libby.  "One 
of  the  kind  that  gives  away  all  he  has,  and 
then  commits  suicide  or  takes  to  drink." 

"Well,"  replied  Coif  ax,  "if  you  call  a  man 
a  damn  fool  because  he  gets  into  debt  the 
country  is  full  of  'em.  But  I  know  Howard 

[8] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

better  than  you  do.  There  is  too  much  good 
in  him  either  to  commit  suicide  or  take  to 
drink." 

There  was  a  knock  on  my  door.  I  opened 
it,  and  saw  the  steward  with  some  whiskey 
on  a  tray. 

"Your  order,"  he  said. 

"How  much?"    I  queried. 

"Thirty  cents,  sir,"  he  replied.  "Where 
shall  I  put  it?" 

"Take  it  away,"  I  said  shortly,  gave  him  a 
half  dollar  and  banged  the  door. 

The  men  outside  had  gone.  I  turned  in 
again,  my  head  full  of  curious  thoughts.  Ten 
minutes  later  I  was  asleep. 

Five-thirty  found  me  up  and  dressed, 
standing  impatiently  in  the  line  of  passengers 
on  the  deck  at  Fall  River. 

An  hour  later  found  me  in  the  South  Sta- 
tion. Boston  seemed  a  new  world  to  me,  and 

[91 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

my  inquiry  at  the  information  bureau  elicited 
the  reply  that  boarding-houses  were  on  Bea- 
con Hill.  I  soon  found  myself  crossing  the 
Common  to  Beacon  Street.  There  I  could 
scarcely  credit  any  of  the  fine  houses  as  my 
future  home.  A  man  of  about  my  own  age 
stood  on  the  corner.  I  asked  if  he  knew  where 
the  boarding-houses  were  located.  He  was 
most  courteous  and  told  me  that  there  was 
an  excellent  house  on  Willow  Street  named 
the  Hermitage,  offering  further  to  take  me 
there  —  a  block  away.  As  we  walked  along 
my  new  friend  informed  me  that  his  name  was 
Frederick  W.  Peabody  and  that  he  was  an  attor- 
ney on  Tremont  Street.  I  handed  him  my  card. 

"You   belong   to   the   New   York   Yacht 
Club,  I  see,"  he  said,  reading  as  he  spoke. 

"I  did,"  I  replied. 

"There  is  no  occasion  to  tell  me  that,"  he 
said,  "I  did  not  ask  it." 

[10] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

"Well,"  I  replied,  "I  believe  in  telling  the 
truth." 

"Always?"  asked  Mr.  Peabody. 

"No,  recently,"  I  answered. 

"From  your  remark  I  observe  you  are  an 
ex-liar,"  laughed  Mr.  Peabody. 

At  that  moment  we  stood  before  the 
Hermitage. 

"My  reputation  in  that  line  has  recently 
become  almost  notorious,"  I  replied. 

The  atmosphere  of  New  England  is  dif- 
ferent from  that  of  New  York.  Yankees  are 
likely  to  judge  a  man  by  his  real  worth,  not 
by  his  financial  rating.  It  so  turned  out  then 
that  after  Mr.  Peabody  had  introduced  me 
to  the  janitor  he  in  turn  introduced  me  to  all 
the  men  staying  in  the  house.  The  man 
occupying  the  room  next  to  mine  was  named 
Ralph  Lee. 

In  a  few  minutes  Howard,  the  bankrupt, 
[11] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

Sam^the  janitor,  and  Lee,  the  printer,  were 
breakfasting  together  at  Childs's.  Lee  was 
a  curious  fellow.  He  looked  poverty-stricken, 
yet  well-fed;  his  clothes  were  frayed  and  old; 
his  face  full  and  ruddy.  We  smoked  after- 
ward; Sam,  a  corncob;  Lee,  a  cigarette;  I  a 
cigar.  And  so  my  new  life  began. 

I  can't  say  I  took  it  over-seriously  at  first. 
Seriousness  had  never  been  a  fault  of  mine. 
For  the  first  month  I  drifted;  but  I  drifted,  as 
I  see  now,  always  in  one  direction. 

All  my  life  I  had  been  interested  in  writing 
and  printing.  I  had  found  time  from  my 
business  to  become  the  author  of  several 
books  —  published,  by  the  way,  at  my  own 
expense. 

Lee,  the  job  printer,  had  asked  me  to  visit 
his  shop  in  Cornhill.  I  wandered  in  and  saw 
him  that  afternoon  —  a  shabby  man  in  a 
little,  shabby,  inky  room,  littered  with  proofs. 

[12] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

Afterward  Lee  and  I  went  to  supper,  ^  'here 
Lee  ordered  apple  pie  and  coffee,  and  I  steak. 
Neither  of  us  talked  much.  My  remarks 
were  chiefly  in  regard  to  the  printing  business 
and  I  gleaned  a  lot  of  information  from  him  in 
the  two  hours  that  we  talked.  We  returned 
to  the  Hermitage  together.  He  went  directly 
to  his  room ;  I  to  mine.  I  threw  myself  into  a 
rocker,  ran  my  hands  into  my  pockets,  felt  of 
the  last  seven  dollars  to  my  name,  mused  a 
while  over  it,  then  suddenly  arose  and  seizing  a 
newspaper  read  the  thing  through,  ads  and  all. 

The  next  day  was  Sunday.  As  I  sat  there 
in  my  rocker  reading  the  Boston  Globe,  I 
saw  that  Joe  Howard,  its  New  York  corre- 
spondent, had  died. 

I  knew  Joe  Howard  well;  he  was  my  second 
cousin  —  a  jovial,  social  fellow,  around  town 
all  the  first  of  the  week.  On  Thursdays  he 
used  to  disappear,  saying: 

[13] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

"I've  got  to  write  my  weekly  sermon  for 
those  Puritans  up  in  New  England." 

It  always  seemed  to  me  a  very  agreeable 
way  of  making  a  living.  The  next  day  I 
called  upon  the  editor  of  the  Globe  and  asked 
to  continue  Joe  Howard's  column.  The 
editor  was  agreeable,  but  firm.  "Joe  How- 
ard's place,"  he  said,  "can  never  be  filled; 
and  that  column  is  closed  forever."  How- 
ever, he  seemed  very  much  entertained  by 
my  conversation  and  advised  me  to  write  for 
the  newspapers. 

"Shall  I  submit  something  to  the  Globe?'* 
I  ventured  to  ask. 

"No,"  he  replied,  with  a  twinkle  in  his 
eye.  "From  your  conversation  I  infer  that 
your  matter  would  be  of  a  humorous  and 
personal  nature,  appreciated  in  a  smaller  city 
like  Brockton  or  Salem." 

"Salem  is  where  my  people  come  from," 
[M] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

I  remarked,  rising  to  go,  for  I  could  see  that 
this  kindly  editor  really  thought  I  or  my  prop- 
osition was  a  bit  of  a  joke. 

"It's  a  fine  old  town,"  said  he,  as  he  shook 
my  hand  and  most  graciously  bowed  me  out 
of  the  door. 

I  can't  say  why,  but  for  some  reason  his 
suggestion  about  going  to  Salem  stayed  in 
my  head. 

That  night  I  had  two  dollars  left.  I  was 
becoming  very  much  worried.  The  next 
morning  I  awoke  early;  one  always  does  when 
broke.  Lee  and  I  had  breakfast  together  at 
Childs's.  I  cut  out  the  eggs  and  substituted 
griddles  and  coffee.  Lee  went  off  to  business, 
leaving  me  reading  the  newspapers.  As  I 
sat  there  an  item  caught  my  eye.  A  man 
who  yesterday  had  been  in  comfortable  cir- 
cumstances, apparently,  to-day  was  in  ter- 
rible straits  —  out  of  money,  out  of  home, 

[15] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

and  almost  out  of  friends.  It  is  not  strange 
that  it  suggested  a  theme  to  me;  and  as  a 
matter  of  fact,  before  I  had  reached  the  Com- 
mon that  morning  it  began  to  take  definite 
shape.  I  found  a  vacant  seat  near  the  Frog 
Pond,  and  there  in  the  presence  of  the  splash- 
ing fountain  I  wrote  a  poem  that  I  called 
"Sunshine  and  Rain."  I  took  it  to  an  even- 
ing newspaper  and  they  gave  me  six  dollars 
for  it.  That  night  I  spent  a  good  share  of  it 
on  a  dinner  with  Lee  at  the  Parker  House. 
Then  for  three  days  I  was  the  same  old 
Arthur  Howard.  As  the  days  went  by  I 
wrote  innumerable  poems,  but  they  all  ap- 
parently lacked  the  inspired  touch.  No  one 
would  buy  them. 

In  no  time  I  was  strapped  again,  and  for 
the  first  time  in  my  life  I  went  to  bed  hungry, 
reading  in  an  evening  paper  the  poem  that 
I  had  written  a  few  days  before.  Here  it  is : 

[16] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

SUNSHINE  AND  RAIN 

I  will  love  you  in  the  sunshine, 
But  I'll  leave  you  in  the  rain. 
Did  I  promise  when  we  married? 
Well!  at  least  I've  kept  your  name. 
We  said  "richer,"  we  said  "poorer," 
But  of  course  it's  not  the  same, 
For  I'll  love  you  in  the  sunshine, 
But  I'll  leave  you  in  the  rain. 

I  am  young  and  I  am  pretty, 
I'll  be  happy  by  myself; 
I'll  not  follow  you  in  trouble, 
And  be  put  upon  the  shelf. 
When  you've  money,  come  and  seek  me, 
For  our  tastes  are  just  the  same; 
And  I'll  love  you  in  the  sunshine, 
But  I'll  leave  you  in  the  rain. 
[17] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

There  is  some  one  living  somewhere 

Who  is  lonesome,  sad,  but  true; 

All  his  thoughts  are  turning  homeward, 

Little  woman,  just  of  you. 

And  in  exile  there  comes  daily 

A  remembrance  and  refrain, 

That  she  loved  him  in  the  sunshine, 

But  she  left  him  in  the  rain. 


[181 


CHAPTER  II 

I  HAD  always  been  what  is  termed  a  moral 
coward;  whether  I  was  a  physical  cow- 
ard or  not  I  had  yet  to  learn.  My  life 
had  been  spent  up  to  this  time  surrounded 
with  every  possible  comfort,  amid  conditions 
that  were  quite  free  from  physical  dangers. 
It  takes  no  especial  courage  to  frequent  fash- 
ionable hotels,  whether  in  New  York,  London 
or  Paris.  In  all  these  places  I  was  welcome. 
But  when  it  came  to  my  debts  and  I  was 
pressed  for  payment  I  always  refused  to 
face  the  issue  —  unless  I  actually  had  the 
money  —  gave  an  evasive  answer  and  prom- 
ised anything.  Furthermore,  I  detested 
stormy  interviews,  so  that  I  was  always  ready 
to  compromise  the  issue  if  I  might  thereby 

[19] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

escape  the  storm.  Of  course  it  must  be 
remembered,  in  passing  judgment,  that  I  had 
the  name  and  financial  reputation  of  a 
big  firm  behind  me  and  a  father  who 
was  indulgent  to  fall  back  on  in  times  of  dire 
need. 

But  to  return  to  my  narrative:  Events 
were  moving  rapidly  for  me  now.  Boston 
was  becoming  bigger  and  lonelier  every  hour. 
I  was  beginning  to  feel  greatly  in  need  of  some 
one  to  whom  I  might  go  with  my  troubles; 
but,  like  the  Prodigal  Son,  I  gradually  came 
unto  myself  and  beheld  a  changed  man. 
Not  too  thoroughly  changed,  but  changed. 
Several  little  things  came  up  to  show  it. 
When  Sam  came  to  me  with  a  bill  of  four 
dollars  for  room  rent,  I  frankly  told  him  that 
I  was  dead  broke  and  that  there  was  not  a 
chance  in  the  world  of  my  paying  it.  That 
marked  some  small  gain  at  least  in  moral 

[20] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

strength.  Sam  roared  with  laughter,  for 
some  unaccountable  reason,  declared  I  was 
the  smartest  fellow  he  had  ever  met  —  and 
took  me  to  breakfast. 

When  we  returned  to  the  Hermitage  I 
found  a  letter  for  me  forwarded  from  New 
York.  It  was  re-addressed  to  me  from  my 
lawyer,  whom  I  had  instructed  to  forward  all 
mail.  I  tore  it  open  and  there  fell  out  some 
thirty-five  dollars  in  cash,  sent  anonymously. 
The  writing  on  the  envelope,  however,  told 
the  whole  story  —  it  was  from  Colfax.  Sam 
got  his  four  dollars  and  I  felt  like  a  prince 
when  I  paid  it. 

I  spent  this  as  freely  as  I  had  the  rest. 
When  it  was  gone  I  met  a  Boston  man  who 
had  been  in  school  with  me.  When  I  told 
him  I  was  in  hard  luck,  he  insisted  on  giving 
me  a  card  to  the  Union  Club.  "You  can 
take  your  meals  there  while  you  are  getting 

[21] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

started,"  said  he.  So  for  two  weeks  more  my 
board  was  provided. 

I  tried  for  work  in  a  big  department  store; 
for  a  day  I  was  a  book  agent;  and  all  the  time 
I  haunted  newspaper  offices. 

Then,  in  the  first  part  of  October,  I  took  a 
desperate  and  unsuccessful  plunge.  I  formed 
a  company  of  entertainers,  backed  by  another 
man  at  the  Hermitage  (my  rooming  house), 
and  we  started  out  to  entertain  in  the  public 
hall  of  Pepperell,  a  town  near  Boston.  The 
carfare  and  hotel  bill  were  forty-three  dol- 
lars. We  had  in  the  house  some  fifteen 
people.  Seeing  this,  I  circulated  among  the 
audience  and  returned  their  money,  and  had 
the  local  telephone  operator  notify  every- 
body she  could  reach  that  the  show  was  free. 
And  then  they  didn't  come! 

It  was  a  sad  night  for  me.  The  next  morn- 
ing I  sent  the  rest  of  the  company  home, 

[22] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

and  had  to  walk  myself  seven  miles  from 
Pepperell  to  Nashua  Junction,  with  two 
dress-suit  cases,  to  get  back  to  Boston.  And 
I  owed  my  fellow  member  of  the  boarding- 
house  over  forty  dollars  which  fye  had  ad- 
vanced to  me.  And  now  I  was  getting  down 
to  bedrock.  I  fell  back  on  my  wardrobe. 

I  was  always  a  great  believer  in  clothes 
from  a  business  standpoint,  especially  in  New 
York.  If  I  intended  to  go  back  into  business 
in  New  York  to-morrow,  the  first  and  best 
investment  I  could  make  would  be  to  put 
fifteen  hundred  dollars  into  clothes.  A  man 
can  do  almost  anything  in  New  York  on  the 
strength  of  a  fifteen-hundred-dollar  wardrobe. 
In  Boston,  I  had  kept  up  appearances  care- 
fully. I  doubt  if  my  fellow  roomers  really 
appreciated  just  the  condition  I  was  in. 

They  had  sent  on  my  clothes  from  home. 
In  this  wardrobe,  as  I  remember  it,  there  were 

[23] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

fourteen  suits  of  clothes,  five  overcoats, 
something  over  one  hundred  neckties,  and 
some  fifteen  pairs  of  shoes.  They  were  no 
cheap  clothes;  not  a  suit  had  cost  me  less 
than  eighty  dollars.  There  were  two  suits 
of  evening  clothes.  One  of  these  was  a  real 
suit  of  clothes.  It  had  cost  me  one  hundred 
and  sixty-five  dollars,  and  it  was  worth  it. 
I  never  saw  a  better  one  in  my  life.  My  ward- 
robe was  bankable;  I  got  ninety-three  dollars 
on  it  all,  and  out  of  this  I  paid  for  my  theat- 
rical venture. 

I  was  through  with  theatres  and  high- 
priced  hotels  now.  I  ate  with  Lee,  the  job 
printer,  at  a  dairy  restaurant. 

I  was  very  glad  I  knew  Lee.  He  was  a 
great  help  to  me,  for  he  was  a  real  expert  on 
cheap  feeding.  He  always  looked  well  fed 
and  rosy,  and  his  face  was  unmarked  with 
care;  yet  he  spent  almost  nothing  for  food, 

[24] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

and  he  did  it  on  a  carefully  worked  out 
theory. 

Little  by  little  he  explained  this  to  me. 
Popcorn  balls  were  his  staple.  At  a  cent 
apiece,  they  were  as  filling  as  eggs.  Two 
were  ample  for  breakfast.  Squash  pie  at  five 
cents  was  equal  to  a  small  steak;  with  milk  or 
coffee  it  made  an  excellent  dinner.  Tea 
must  be  avoided  —  it  made  you  hungry. 
Coffee,  on  the  other  hand,  was  excellent  — 
it  killed  the  appetite.  Gradually  I  learned 
from  Lee  the  first  lesson  of  the  poverty- 
stricken  man  in  the  city.  It  is  not  quality 
or  even  nutriment  that  you  must  have  first; 
it  is  something  to  fill  you  up. 

Toward  the  last  of  October  I  was  down  and 
out  in  earnest.  My  money  had  dwindled 
till  I  could  count  my  nickels  on  the  fingers  of 
one  hand.  Then  there  was  one  last  spasm  of 
luck  for  me.  My  house  in  New  York  had 

[25] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

been  sold  under  foreclosure.  I  had  got  no 
less  than  five  mortgages  on  it,  and  my  equity 
in  it  was  not  usable.  But  there  was  twenty- 
five  dollars  and  thirty  cents  of  rebate  on 
insurance  which  was  rightfully  mine,  and 
this  was  sent  on  to  me. 

As  already  hinted,  I  began  to  have  an  un- 
controllable desire  to  visit,  I  may  say  inhabit, 
printing  offices.  I  spent  several  weeks  going 
from  one  newspaper  office  to  another  watch- 
ing the  various  operations  that  take  place  in 
them.  No  one  seemed  to  take  the  slightest 
interest  in  me  as  I  wandered  about  from  room 
to  room,  and  from  machine  to  machine. 
Perhaps  they  were  too  busy  with  the  endless 
rush  of  business  to  be  concerned  with  my 
ramblings.  The  life  fascinated  me,  so  that  I 
often  stayed  way  into  the  early  morning  hours. 
No  step  escaped  my  attention.  As  a  result, 
I  frequently  found  myself  crossing  the  Com- 

[26] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

mon  at  two  or  three  in  the  morning,  although 
I  had  been  cautioned  repeatedly  that  it  was 
a  risky  thing  to  do,  as  the  place  was  infested 
by  dangerous  characters.  But  somehow  I 
did  not  seem  to  care.  I  had  become,  poten- 
tially at  least,  a  dangerous  character  myself. 
This  was  part  of  the  change.  I  felt  myself 
in  a  somewhat  desperate  state  of  mind  that 
made  me  careful  in  the  spending  of  my  meagre 
money,  while  at  the  same  time  reckless  of  my 
person.  In  fact,  I  rarely  thought  of  myself 
in  respect  to  personal  harm.  It  seemed  now 
part  of  my  daily  life  to  take  a  chance.  And 
many  a  night  I  said  good-night  to  a  companion 
from  one  of  the  newspaper  offices  as  he  left 
me  to  walk  around  the  Common,  while  I 
plunged  into  the  shadow  of  the  trees,  passed 
down  by  the  shore  of  the  Pond  and  slowly 
made  my  way  to  the  Hermitage.  But  with 
all  my  recklessness  and  apparent  don't-care 

[27] 


THE  MAN  WHO  BUCKED  UP 
spirit,  I  took  particular  care  of  my  clothes 
and  was  always  carefully  shaved.  It  is  a 
practical  truth,  at  least  among  strangers,  if 
not  always  among  friends,  that  clothes  make 
the  man.  Whether  we  like  it  or  not,  whether 
it  is  right  or  not,  outside  show  passes  for  a 
whole  lot  in  this  present  age.  Lee,  on  the 
other  hand,  was  usually  in  rags  and  unshaven, 
but  cheerful.  Sunny  Jim  might  well  have 
been  his  name.  His  meals  were  uniformly 
the  same  —  pie  and  coffee  —  varied  occasion- 
ally by  an  egg  sandwich. 

A  few  days  after  this,  as  Lee  and  I  were 
eating  breakfast  together  in  silence,  my  eye 
fell  on  the  following  item  in  the  Boston  Post: 

SALEM  "GAZETTE"  CLOSES 

OLDEST    PAPER   IN    THE    STATE    ENDS    ITS 
CAREER 

SALEM,  MASS.  — The  Salem  Gazette,  founded 
in  1768,  ceased  publication  to-day.  It  has 

[28] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

been  recently  issued  as  a  daily.  There  are 
no  assets  or  liabilities.  It  died  a  natural 
death.  The  old  plant  is  now  doing  job  work. 

The  old  newspaper  in  the  town  of  my  an- 
cestors! The  suggestion  which  had  come  to 
me  when  I  talked  with  the  editor  of  the  Globe 
returned  to  my  mind.  I  could  go  back  again, 
perhaps,  and  find  a  living  in  the  place  my 
people  had  sprung  from.  I  took  the  first 
train  for  Salem. 

It  was  noon  before  I  arrived  in  the  town  of 
my  fathers.  The  Gazette  machinery  and 
franchise  were  owned,  it  seemed,  by  Robin 
Damon,  the  proprietor  of  the  only  daily 
newspaper  in  the  city.  I  entered  the  rather 
pretentious  office  of  the  News,  and  waited 
for  its  owner,  who  was  out. 

Presently  he  came  in  —  a  thick-set, 
heavy- jowled,  red-headed  man. 

"Is  this  Mr.  Damon?"  I  asked. 
[291 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

"Yes." 

"Do  you  own  the  Gazette?"  I  inquired. 

"Why?" 

"I  wanted  to  buy  it,"  I  said  smiling. 

"It  is  not  for  sale,"  he  cut  in,  turning  and 
sitting  down  to  a  book  which  lay  on  his  desk. 

He  was  a  type  I  was  not  unfamiliar  with. 
For  five  minutes  I  stood  perfectly  still,  wait- 
ing for  further  signs  of  action  —  at  the  end 
of  which  time  he  arose  and  came  brusquely 
toward  me. 

"Can  I  do  anything  for  you?"  he  inquired 
sarcastically. 

"Will  you  give  me  permission  to  publish 
the  Gazette?"  I  asked  suavely. 

"Where  are  you  from?"  said  Mr.  Damon. 

"New  York,"  I  answered,  with  my  best 
smile. 

"New  York!  Well,  you  had  better  go 
back  again,"  he  growled.  "Plenty  of  men 
[80] 


THE  MAN  WHO  BUCKED  UP 
have  tried  to  publish  a  daily  paper  in  Salem, 
but  the  people  here  are  satisfied  with  the 
News.  We  have  covered  this  field  for  thirty 
years.  There's  no  chance  for  another  paper 
to  break  in  here.  It  would  cost  a  small  for- 
tune, and  only  a  fool  would  try  it." 

He  made  a  grimace,  apparently  intended 
for  a  smile,  checked  himself,  gave  me  a  cold 
stare,  and  turned  and  sat  down  again  with  a 
grunt.  I  had  a  feeling  that  I  should  leave. 
I  excuted  my  best  dancing-school  bow,  smiled 
benignly  upon  the  entire  office  force,  and  left 
the  office. 

Two  minutes  later,  as  I  was  sauntering 
down  the  street,  I  turned  around  and  came 
face  to  face  with  a  man  who  was  following  me. 
I  recognized  him  as  one  of  the  men  employed 
in  the  News  office. 

I  don't  like  opposition;  I  was  always  a 
spoiled  child.  This  thing  grated  on  my  finer 

[31] 


THE  MAN  WHO  BUCKED  UP 
sensibilities.  Besides,  I  had  over  twenty 
dollars  in  my  pocket.  I  turned  back  and 
stepped  into  the  first  bank  I  came  to.  Two 
employees  were  swapping  stories,  which  they 
seemed  under  some  obligation  to  finish  before 
they  looked  at  me.  Presently  I  caught  the 
eye  of  the  taller  of  the  two  and  said,  "I  am 
thinking  of  starting  a  daily  newspaper  in 
Salem.  Where  could  I  get  a  reporter?" 

Both  men  started  as  if  shot.  The  man  to 
whom  I  addressed  my  remark,  burst  out 
laughing.  "I  admire  your  nerve,"  he  roared. 

"I  know,  but  that  man  over  there  in  the 
News  office  was  so  insulting  to  me,  and  was 
so  cocksure  that  only  a  fool  would  attempt  to 
make  a  go  of  a  newspaper  in  this  town,  that  I've 
quite  made  up  my  mind  to  take  a  chance." 

"It's  an  awful  chance.  Old  Damon  is  a 
bad  one  when  he  gets  going,  and  never  has 
tolerated  any  rivals." 

[32] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

"Well,  he'll  tolerate  me,"  I  said  quietly. 

"All  right,  go  ahead,  and  here's  wishing 
you  good  luck.  As  a  matter  of  fact  the  mer- 
chants of  this  place  have  been  anxious  for  a 
new  paper  for  a  number  of  years,  for  they  are 
now  at  the  mercy  of  this  one  paper.  But 
Damon  controls  everything  in  the  newspaper 
line,  and  I  guess  it  can't  be  done." 

"How  can  he  stop  me?"  I  asked. 

"Don't  know  that  he  can,"  said  the  banker, 
"but  he'll  make  a  good  try." 

The  idea  amused  them  heartily.  They 
told  me  that  fourteen  separate  men  had  ap- 
peared with  fourteen  different  newspapers  and 
all  had  gone  down  before  Damon.  Never- 
theless they  referred  me  to  a  man  who  might 
know  about  a  reporter  —  George  Day,  a 
local  tailor. 


[33] 


CHAPTER  III 

AS  I  entered   George  Day's   shop,  he 
arose  from  his  chair  in  a  business-like 
way,  but  after  a  glance  at  me  from 
head  to  foot,  he  sat  down  again. 

"I  am  not  a  customer,"  I  said.  "I  come 
for  information." 

"Political?"  inquired  Mr.  Day. 
"Oh,  my!  no,"  I  said.     "I  am  not  a  poli- 
tician." 

"Well,  whatever  you  come  for,  sit  down 
and  make  yourself  at  home;  at  least  you  are 
somebody  new,  and  they  are  scarce  and  al- 
ways welcome,"  said  Mr.  Day. 

"Am  I  the  only  stranger  that  has  come  into 
the  city  recently?"  I  inquired,  seating  myself. 
Day  filled  his  pipe  and  his  eyes  twinkled. 
[341 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

After  lighting  it  carefully,  he  said:  "You 
confess  you  are  a  stranger.  They  are  rare  in 
Salem.  They  often  pass  through,  but  one 
look  is  enough  —  they  instantly  take  the  first 
car  or  train  back  to  where  they  came  from. 
The  fact  is  Salem  is  in  wrong;  too  much 
'witch*  business;  it  seems  to  scare  the  new- 
comer. As  a  business  proposition,  the  city 
is  dead." 

"That's  too  bad,"  I  replied,  "because  I 
came  here  to  go  into  business." 

"Got  a  license?"  said  Mr.  Day. 

"A  license  for  what?"  I  asked. 

"To  sell  booze,"  replied  Day. 

"Certainly  not,"  I  laughed.  "Do  I  look 
like  a  liquor  dealer?" 

"No,  you  do  not;  but  the  booze  business 
is  the  only  chance  of  making  any  money 
here." 

"How  about  the  clothing  business?  You 
[35] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

seem  to  do  business  here,"  I  said  looking  at 
his  stock  of  goods. 

"Look  here,"  said  Day,  with  considerable 
animation,  "don't  think  for  a  minute  that 
I  am  a  native  —  I  come  from  Boston.  I 
came  here  one  day  fourteen  years  ago 
and  have  never  been  able  to  get  away 


since." 


"Isn't  any  one  here  sport  enough  to  stake 
you  for  the  fare?"  I  asked. 

"It  isn't  that,  but  I  married  a  Salem  girl," 
replied  Day. 

"And  the  Salem  girls  are ' 

"Mrs.  Day  is  a  good  fellow,"  he  replied. 

"Your  family  is  an  exception,"  I  said 
blandly.  "It  is  rare  that  two  good  fellows 
happen  in  one  family!" 

"Cut  out  the  'con'  business,"  he  said, 
shortly.  "It  doesn't  go  with  me." 

I  smiled  and  blew  a  volume  of  smoke  into 
[36] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

the  air.  We  both  smoked  on  in  silence. 
Presently  I  handed  him  a  cigar. 

"I  never  refuse,"  he  said,  laying  aside  his 
pipe. 

We  continued  to  smoke,  each  watching  the 
other.  The  silence  grew  awkward,  so  I 
cleared  my  throat. 

"To  be  frank  with  you/*  I  said,  "I  came  to 
Salem  to  start  a  daily  paper.  I  am  looking 
for  a  reporter,  and  incidentally  some  infor- 
mation about  Salem." 

"  Do  you  mean  to  tell  me  that  you  are  going 
to  start  a  newspaper  here  and  yet  are  not 
familiar  with  the  conditions  in  this  town?"  he 
asked. 

"I  never  thought  of  Salem  until  9  A.  M. 
to-day,"  I  replied. 

"But  why  Salem?"  asked  Day. 

"Well,  one  place  is  as  good  as  another,  and 
Salem,  it  seems,  has  but  one  paper.  It  looks 

[37] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 
like  a  busy  place,  and  my  grandfather  was 
born  here,  and  the  conditions  look  good." 

Day  put  his  head  back  and  whistled,  "Pull 
for  the  shore,  sailor,  pull  for  the  shore,"  after 
which  he  said: 

"Mr.  Stranger " 

"Mr.  Howard,"  I  cut  in. 

"Well,  Mr.  Howard,  you  came  here  for  a 
reporter  and  for  information.  I'll  give  you 
the  latter  and  then  you  can  select  the  former, 
if  you  have  the  nerve." 

"Nerve"  seemed  to  be  in  the  air. 

"Salem,"  he  continued,  "is  a  hotbed  of 
political  misdeeds.  It  is  run  by  four  cliques. 
First  and  foremost  is  Colonel  Peterson,  a 
contractor,  who  has  dominated  county  poli- 
tics for  years.  He  does  all  the  dirty  political 
work  in  this  section  for  the  big  men  in  the  state. 
He  was  twice  mayor  and  would  be  still,  only 
a  minister,  who  has  since  left  here,  told  him 
[38] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

that  if  he  ever  dared  run  for  office  again  he 
would  come  back  and  tell  the  truth  about  him. 
Some  men  are  afraid  of  the  truth  here.  Then 
there  are  the  McSweeney  brothers,  three  of 
them — William,  Morgan,  and  Parker.  William 
is  an  alderman  and  a  republican;  his  partner, 
Morgan,  is  a  democrat;  Parker  is  an  indepen- 
dent; so  that  no  matter  what  party  you  line  up 
with,  one  of  the  brothers  is  with  you." 

"How  about  the  prohibition  party?"  I 
asked. 

"They  are  all  members  of  a  temperance 
club  and  do  not  drink,"  he  said. 

"How  about  the  liquor  interests?" 

"McSweeney  brothers  are  lawyers  and 
attorneys  for  most  of  the  liquor  people,"  he 
replied. 

"Cinch,"  I  said. 

"Open  and  shut,"  he  replied;  and  con- 
tinued: "The  third  party  is  headed  by  the 

[S9] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

present  mayor,  John  F.  Hurley.  Hurley 
always  has  two  thousand  votes  in  his  vest 
pocket;  consequently,  any  time  that  three 
candidates  are  put  up,  John  F.  wins  out." 

"  He  has  run  before?  "  I  asked. 

"Eleven  times,  and  will  run  until  'Hell 
freezes  over." 

"Why  should  the  fact  of  'Hell's  freezing 
over*  interfere  with  Salem?"  I  asked. 

"I  spoke  politically,"  he  replied,  "  and  politi- 
cally Salem  is  Hell.  The  fourth  party  is  made 
up  of  the  old  aristocrats  and  the  business 
men.  They  flit  from  Peterson  to  McSweeney 
and  to  Hurley  as  it  appears  expedient." 

"Why  doesn't  the  News  tell  all  this?"  I 
inquired. 

Day  laughed.      "The  News  is  all  parties; 

it  is  hopelessly  involved.     Colonel  Peterson 

is  a  friend  of  Mr.  Damon;  the  McSweeneys 

are  friends  of  the  News  reporters;  and  for 

[40] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

respectability's  sake  the  policy  of  the  News  is 
to  be  in  with  the  aristocrats  and  business  men." 

"Then  how  is  John  F.  Hurley  elected?"  I 
asked. 

"  Simple,"  said  Day.  "  The  people  hate  the 
News  because  it  has  slandered  so  many  fami- 
lies in  town,  so  that  every  once  in  a  while  the 
people  rise  in  their  wrath  and  vote  for  John  F. 
just  to  spite  the  News.  Twenty  years  ago 
Damon  had  to  skip  to  Europe  for  two  years 
to  avoid  arrest  for  libel!  It  was  patched  up 
in  his  absence  and  he  returned  'improved  in 
health.'  Since  then  he  has  been  more  cautious. 
But  the  News  is  the  limit.  It  says  just  what 
it  pleases,  whether  it  be  true  or  not." 

"It  looks  like  a  money-maker,"  I  said,  pick- 
ing up  a  copy.  "There  are  plenty  of  ads." 

"Sure  thing.  We  have  to  advertise  in  it 
or  get  slammed." 

"How  would  it  be  if  I  told  afl  about  the 
[41] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

Colonel,  the  McSweeneys,  John  F.  Hurley  and 
the  News?  Would  the  people  like  it?"  I 
asked. 

"Like  it!  They'd  eat  it  up.  But  have  you 
got  money  enough?" 

"How  much  would  it  take?" 

"Sixty  thousand  dollars,  the  News  says." 

"I  haven't  got  any,"  I  said. 

"How  can  you  do  it  then?" 

"I  don't  know,  but  I'm  going  to  try,"  I  re- 
plied quietly,  handing  him  another  cigar  and 
lighting  one  myself. 

"Look  here,  Mr.  Howard,"  he  exclaimed. 
"  You  will  make  a  ten-strike  in  this  town,  but, 
remember,  if  you  hit  one  you  hit  all.  You 
cannot  trust  any  one.  Everybody  here  is 
mixed  up  with  some  crowd,  and  if  you  do  as 
you  intimate,  this  city  will  turn  turtle.  Per- 
sonally I  believe  the  people  want  it,  and  after 
all,  you  will  only  have  to  tell  the  truth.  Fact 
[42] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

is,  no  one  has  ever  showed  them  up.  But," 
he  hesitated,  "it  requires  nerve.  Have  you 
got  it?" 

"Nerve"  again! 

Before  I  had  a  chance  to  reply,  he  said, 
"When  do  you  start?" 

"To-morrow." 

"Why  so  soon?" 

"Because  I  want  to  get  going  before  any 
one  knows  it." 

"But  no  one  knows  it,"  he  rejoined. 

"You  do,"  I  replied. 

"But  you  don't  believe  I  would  tell,  do 
you?" 

"I  don't  know  that  you  would;  but  I  am 
taking  your  advice,"  I  added. 

"What?"  he  asked. 

"To  trust  no  one." 

He  held  out  his  hand.  "You're  the  boy, 
Howard,"  he  exclaimed.  "But,  gee!  I  can 

[43J 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

see  your  troubles   coming  faster  than  hail- 
stones." 

"Man  is  born  to  trouble  as  the  sparks 
fly  upward/  "  I  quoted  as  I  arose,  took  a  paper 
along  with  me  and  left  the  room. 


[44] 


CHAPTER  IV 

TWENTY  minutes  later  I  was  reading 
in  the  Public  Library  the  old  files  of 
the  News.     When  it  started  thirty 
years  before,  it  was  not  much  more  than  a 
hand-bill,  as  full  of  typographical  errors  as 
anything  could  be  and  remain  understandable. 
What  I  knew  about  newspapers  was  nothing, 
but  I  could  certainly  start  as  good  a  one  as 
Mr.  Damon  had. 

That  evening,  about  eight  o'clock,  I 
visited  Lee  at  his  printing-plant  in  Corn- 
hill.  I  had  a  business  proposition  to  make 
to  him.  When  I  asked  if  he  would  print 
a  newspaper  for  me,  he  almost  collapsed 
with  joy.  His  price  was  fifteen  dollars  a 
day. 

[45] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

I  offered  him  five  dollars.  He  hesitated. 
"  Cash,"  I  added.  He  accepted. 

I  sat  down  at  once,  and  in  a  couple  of  hours 
I  handed  him  my  copy,  which  he  started  im- 
mediately to  set  into  type.  There  was  no 
sleep  for  us  that  night.  At  four  o'clock  the 
press  work  was  all  done.  On  the  first  train  I 
took  out  to  Salem  the  first  five  hundred  copies 
of  the  Morning  Dispatch.  Four  hundred  and 
fifty  of  them  I  left  at  the  local  newsdealers  and 
went  into  a  nearby  restaurant  for  breakfast. 

The  restaurant  was  a  few  doors  from  the 
News  office.  As  I  stepped  out  of  it,  Mr. 
Damon,  its  editor,  came  tearing  up  in  his 
automobile.  And  as  he  came  to  the  curb, 
the  man  who  had  been  following  me  the  day 
before  stepped  up  and  handed  him  a  copy  of 
my  new  sheet.  He  tore  it  open,  gave  a  jerky 
laugh  and,  crushing  it  in  his  hand,  walked  into 
his  office. 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

No  doubt  his  contemptuous  laugh  was 
justified.  Yet,  it  was  music  to  me  to  hear  the 
voices  of  two  subsidized  newsboys  singing 
out,  "Dispatch!  Dispatch!"  before  his  office. 

Then  I  walked  over  to  Day's  tailor  shop. 
It  was  full  of  men,  to  whom  Day  introduced 
me  with  a  sweep  of  his  hand.  I  gave  each  of 
them  a  copy  of  my  paper.  Day  was  the  first 
to  break  the  pall  of  silence  that  ensued. 

"It's  awful  cute,"  he  said. 

That  was  true;  it  was  just  about  the  size 
of  Damon's  first  effort. 

"Reminds  me  of  a  doll's  house,"  said  an- 
other man. 

"Not  only  is  it  what  you  call  cunning,  but 
it  is  remarkable  for  its  lack  of  information," 
said  a  man  on  the  table.  "For  instance, 
where  are  the  deaths  and  marriages?" 

"We  don't  believe  in  encouraging  either 
deaths  or  marriages,"  I  replied 

[471 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

Every  one  laughed  and  the  conversation 
became  general.  While  I  talked  of  New  York 
every  one  was  quiet,  but  on  local  issues  they 
all  expressed  long  opinions.  Somehow,  con- 
versation came  back  to  the  Dispatch,  and 
Day  said: 

"  Really,  Mr.  Howard,  your  paper  is  pretty 
punk.  There's  nothing  to  it.  If  you  cannot 
give  us  a  large  sheet,  the  thing  won't  go  here." 

This  sentiment  seemed  to  be  the  sentiment 
of  the  crowd,  excepting  one  man.  He  was 
tall  and  bony,  about  thirty-five,  with  sharp 
features.  He  was  smoking  a  big,  black  cigar 
which  he  held  savagely  between  his  teeth. 
He  spoke  up  in  a  strong,  resonant  voice  that 
drowned  out  all  the  others. 

"Shut  up,  the  whole  crowd  of  you.     You 

don't  know  nothing  nohow.     What  difference 

does  it  make  how  it  starts  as  long  as  it  starts. 

You  all  condemn  the  News  and  hope  for  an- 

[48] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

other  paper.  It's  here.  Now  for  Heaven's 
sake  nourish  it;  don't  strangle  it.  Mighty 
glad  to  know  you,  Mr.  Howard,"  looking  me 
up  and  down.  "  There  ain't  much  to  you,  but 
you've  got  a  sharp  way  that  I  like.  Come  on, 
let's  get  away  from  the  Knocker's  Club," 
and  he  half  pulled  me  out  of  the  room.  When 
we  were  on  the  street  he  blurted  out,  "Those 
fellows  are  my  friends,  but  they  are  always 
looking  for  trouble,  so  be  mighty  careful  what 
you  say  in  their  presence,  for  any  one  of  them 
would  sell  you  out  for  ten  dollars  —  except 
Ed." 

"Which  was  Ed,"  I  asked. 

"He  wasn't  there,"  he  replied. 

"And  what  is  your  name,  Mr. ?"  I 

asked. 

"No  Mister  to  it;  just  Bill,  that's  all,"  he 
added,  turning  to  go 

I  held  out  my  hand.  He  looked  at  it,  then 
[49] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

pulled  out  a  cigar,  put  it  in  my  outstretched 
hand,  turned  and  started  up  the  street.  I 
stood  a  moment  watching  him  as  he  strode 
along  and  noticed  that  every  one  seemed  to 
be  acquainted  with  him.  A  big  policeman 
stood  near  me.  I  stepped  up  to  him  and 
said,  pointing  to  my  ungainly  friend: 

"Who's  Bill?" 

"Bill?  Oh,  he  is  the  junior  partner  of  the 
big  dry  goods  store  over  there." 

So  I  met  Bill  Sanborn,  the  young  dry  goods 
man.  Later  I  was  to  meet  Ed  Allen  his 
friend. 

At  that  point  a  thin,  gray-haired  man  of 
about  forty-five,  who  stood  next  to  the  police- 
man smoking  a  tattered  cigarette,  broke  in 
with  the  remark, 

"Bill  is  one  of  the  few  live  ones  that  are 
left  in  Salem." 

"Thank  you,"  I  said. 
1*0] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

"Don't  mention  it,  Mr.  Editor,"  he  replied. 

"Know  me  already?"  I  asked  in  astonish- 
ment. 

"Bought  your  paper  at  six-thirty;  saw  you 
at  seven-fifteen  on  the  Square;  connected  the 
two."  He  took  another  puff  of  his  cigarette. 
"Old  Sour  Grapes  almost  ran  over  the  Pin- 
heads  this  morning  in  his  automobile,  and  the 
Lemonade  Boys  are  running  around  like  chicks 
with  their  heads  off." 

"Who,"  I  asked,  laughing,  "is  Old  Sour 
Grapes  —  and  the  Pinheads  —  and  the  Lem- 
onade Boys?  " 

"Old  Sour  Grapes  is  Damon;  Pinheads  are 
those  politicians  who  infest  the  Square;  and 
the  Lemonade  Boys  are  the  reporters  of  the 
News.  They  are  all  a  sour  lot." 

I  burst  out  laughing. 

"You  seem  to  have  sized  them  up,"  I 
exclaimed. 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

"Oh,  the  '  Missus'  and  I  have  them  all 
canned,"  replied  Ben  Reed,  my  new  friend, 
taking  another  puff  and  moving  away. 

I  waited  around  until  noon  and  then  I 
called  at  the  newsdealer's  and  asked  for  re- 
ports. The  proprietor  told  me  that  he  settled 
at  the  end  of  the  month.  I  took  the  next 
train  for  Boston. 

I  started  the  Dispatch  on  Saturday,  Octo- 
ber twenty -fourth.  We  came  through  the 
next  week  the  best  we  could,  both  of  us  work- 
ing all  night  long.  In  the  morning  I  carried 
the  edition  to  Salem.  Saturday  night  Lee 
presented  me  his  bill  for  thirty  dollars.  I 
gave  him  what  I  had  —  fifteen  dollars. 

"That's  all  I've  got,"  I  said,  "I'm  dead 
broke." 

Lee  said  nothing  at  the  time;  he  was  not  a 
quick  moving  body.  But  that  night,  when 
we  were  at  supper,  apropos  of  nothing  he 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

remarked   suddenly  in  a  sad  voice:     "Dead 
broke!" 

Several  times  he  muttered  the  phrase. 

"That  ends  it,"  he  said;  "I'm  down  and 
out.  I  counted  on  you.  I  thought  you  had 
money." 

"What?"  I  said,  returning  his  excitement. 
"Haven't  you  got  anything  either?" 

"Not  a  cent,"  said  Lee.  "They  were  just 
going  to  foreclose  on  me  when  you  started  up 
your  newspaper;  I  counted  on  you." 

"What  will  you  do?"  I  said  finally. 

"I  don't  know,"  said  Lee  mournfully. 

He  was  a  phlegmatic  individual,  who  lay 
down  peacefully  when  he  got  in  trouble. 

"It  isn't  new,"  he  continued.  "I  always 
get  just  about  into  this  condition.  This  will 
be  the  fourth  time.  Yep,"  he  mused,  "  the 
fourth  time.  Once  in  Chicago,  once  in  Los 
Angeles,  and  once  in  Savannah." 

[53] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

"You  choose  extreme  distances,"  I  sug- 
gested. 

"Got  to,"  said  Lee  in  tones  of  resignation. 
"It's  safer.  You  see,  the  plan  is  this:  I 
work  at  the  case  till  I  save  up  about  one 
hundred  dollars,  and  then  I  put  it  down  as 
first  payment  for  machinery  and  start  for 
myself." 

"Who  is  your  creditor?"  I  asked  him. 

Lee  named  a  type-founders  company, 
adding  dully:  "They  always  have  been. 
You  see,"  he  explained,  "they  don't  know  it. 
Their  business  is  so  large  that  all  you  need  to 
do  is  to  open  an  account  with  them  in  an- 
other city;  they  never  know  the  difference." 

We  got  up. 

"Well,  I  suppose  you'll  give  it  up  and  go 
back  to  your  people,"  I  said. 

"Haven't  any,"  said  Lee.  "I've  got  to 
hang  on  here  as  long  as  I  can." 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

So  Lee,  peripatetic  job  printer,  and  How- 
ard, bankrupt  jeweller  and  speculator,  got 
together  in  their  new  enterprise,  and  fought 
desperately  to  keep  it  afloat. 

The  job  printer  was  a  star;  Lee  was  as 
automatic  a  typesetter  as  a  linotype;  he  could 
go  to  sleep  setting  type.  The  editor  was 
another  matter.  I  filled  up  the  paper  first 
with  merry  jests  on  the  weather  and  a  few  old 
poems  I  carried  in  my  mind;  I  gave  them  a 
little  Wall  Street  news,  and  for  filling  I  used 
time-tables  and  a  few  columns  of  advertising 
that  I  got  permission  to  run  free. 

As  might  have  been  expected,  both  Lee  and 
I  got  behind  at  the  Hermitage  and  we  were 
considerably  bothered  by  the  landlord.  It 
was  not  long  before  we  had  a  call  from  Mr. 
Peabody,  who  was  the  attorney  for  the  Her- 
mitage. He  proved  to  be  very  kind-hearted 
and  was  considerably  interested  in  the  Dis- 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

patchy  offering  to  aid  me  in  writing  the  editor- 
ials, an  assistance  I  was  very  glad  to  have. 
We  began  on  general  topics,  handling  any- 
thing from  tariff  to  suicide.  But  soon  I 
worked  inevitably  into  local  topics. 

After  we  had  been  going  a  short  time,  I 
noticed  that  my  esteemed  contemporary,  the 
News,  instead  of  picking  up  and  criticising 
local  affairs,  had  an  interesting  habit  of 
wandering  outside  of  the  city  from  time  to 
time,  and  ferociously  assaulting  some  distant 
interest.  The  Standard  Oil  Company  was  a 
favourite  mark;  every  now  and  then  the  News 
would  start  up  out  of  a  sound  sleep  and  tear 
the  Standard  Oil  monopoly  to  pieces 

Now,  I  had  known  the  Standard  Oil  people 
very  well.  I  had  been  in  school  with  two  of 
the  younger  Rockefellers,  and  it  was  my 
opinion  that  they  were  as  good  people  as  the 
editor  of  the  News.  I  thought  these  articles 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

were  a  cheap  and  unfair  method  of  pretend- 
ing virtue,  and  that,  so  far  as  monopoly  went, 
the  methods  of  the  News  in  Salem  were  far 
worse  than  those  of  the  Standard  Oil  in  the 
United  States. 

Mr.  Peabody  and  I  framed  up  an  editorial 
to  this  effect,  and  we  ran  it. 

This  particular  issue  of  the  Dispatch  took 
our  last  two  dollars.  I  didn't  have  carfare 
to  take  the  papers  to  Salem  and  sell  them  . 

That  morning  Mr.  Peabody  dropped  into 
the  office.  "Have  you  mailed  a  copy  to  the 
Standard  Oil  Company?"  he  asked. 

That  suggested  an  idea  to  me,  and  I  went 
over  to  the  office  of  the  Standard  Oil  Com- 
pany on  Congress  Street.  I  sent  in  my  old 
New  York  card  with  "New  York  Yacht  Club" 
on  it,  and  the  manager  sent  for  me  to  come  in 
immediately.  I  handed  him  a  copy  of  the 
Dispatch,  which  he  read  through  carefully. 

[57] 


THE     MAN    WjHO    BUCKED    UP 

"How  many  do  you  want?"    I  asked  him. 

"Two  thousand,"  said  he. 

I  gasped.  Our  edition  was  two  hundred 
and  we  had  not  a  sheet  of  paper  more. 

When  I  finally  explained  this,  the  manager 
said  all  right,  he  would  pay  in  advance.  And 
there  was  twenty  dollars  in  real  money.  Life 
was  revived  again.  It  was  certainly  a  close 
call  for  us  —  the  first  of  many. 

I  don't  care  to  recall  that  next  month.  It 
was  a  very  cold  November  that  year;  and  at 
the  beginning  of  it  Lee  and  I  were  obliged  to 
leave  the  rooming  house  and  go  down  to  his 
printing-office  in  Cornhill,  where  there  wasn't 
any  rent  to  pay,  or  at  least  there  wasn't  any 
rent  paid. 

It  was  a  dreadful  month.  I  went  to  Salem 
every  day  and  got  together  as  many  pennies 
as  I  could,  and  brought  them  back  in  the  even- 
ing. We  had  to  lay  out  twenty -five  cents  a 
[58] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

day  for  paper  —  two  hundred  sheets,  which 
was  our  edition.  I  went  out  and  bought  the 
quarter's  worth  of  paper  and  brought  it  back 
under  my  arm. 

Then  there  was  carfare  to  Salem.  What 
we  had  left  we  had  for  ourselves.  Many  a 
night  I  had  only  twenty  cents  left  over  for 
our  food,  and  sometimes  Lee  had  nothing  to 
eat  at  all  until  I  brought  back  my  small 
change  from  Salem. 

That  month  tested  to  the  utmost  Lee's 
system  on  how  to  live  on  nothing  in  particular. 

We  had  beans  when  we  could  afford  them. 
Oftener  we  had  squash  pie.  But  we  chiefly 
relied  upon  popcorn  balls  for  agreeably  and 
thoroughly  distending  our  stomachs  for  the 
nominal  sum  of  a  penny.  I  don't  know  that 
I  was  greatly  harmed.  I  had  been  very  fond 
of  the  piquant  and  elaborate  sauces  of  the 
Fifth  Avenue  restaurants;  but  the  plain  food,  I 

[59] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

really  believe,  was  better  for  me  than  what  I 
had  been  accustomed  to.  It  certainly  would 
have  been  if  I  had  had  enough  of  it.  But  I 
hadn't.  What  we  took  in  from  the  Dispatch 
would  not  feed  us,  even  with  squash  pie  and 
popcorn  balls. 

The  day  soon  came  when  we  found  our- 
selves absolutely  out  of  food.  Lee  went  out, 
and  when  he  came  back  he  had  five  dollars 
and  no  overcoat. 

"You  take  it,"  he  said,  "and  go  home  to 
your  people."  Good  old  Lee,  he  was  a  gener- 
ous-hearted chap.  Of  course  I  refused,  and 
we  ate  a  good  meal  and  started  over  again. 

We  slept  on  a  pile  of  newspapers  on  the 
floor.  In  the  morning  we  got  up  and  stole 
over  to  the  Quincy  House,  in  the  next  street, 
to  wash  ourselves.  We  warmed  our  place  by 
a  little  stove,  with  coke,  of  which  we  bought 
ten  cents'  worth  at  a  time.  It  often  got  cold 

[60] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

in  the  night,  because  the  stuff  burnt  out  if  we 
didn't  wake  up  every  now  and  then  and 
throw  more  of  it  in  the  stove. 

One  night  Lee  became  very  ill;  about  two 
o'clock  he  had  a  very  bad  chill.  It  was  bit- 
ter cold.  I  got  up  and  walked  over  a  mile 
to  a  public  hospital,  and  begged  some  quinine. 
When  I  got  back  I  had  a  chill  of  my  own. 
But  the  quinine  saved  us  both. 

Every  day,  though,  without  a  slip,  we  got 
out  the  Dispatch.  It  was  late,  often;  it  ran 
from  a  morning  to  an  afternoon  newspaper. 
But  it  came  out,  and  it  was  sold.  I  myself 
was  the  newsboy  To  the  onlooker  the  sit- 
uation had  its  elements  of  fresh  and  joyous 
humour.  I  had  glimpses  of  it  myself  at  the 
time. 

The  town  newsdealer  had  sold  the  Dis- 
patch for  the  first  week,  and,  according  to  his 
statement,  that  he  settled  at  the  end  of  each 

[61] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

month,  he  was  due  to  pay  me  then.  But  when 
I  arrived  to  get  my  money,  he  said  there  was 
practically  nothing  coming  to  me.  Later  he 
said  that  the  paper  was  smaller  than  the  others 
and  got  lost  easily,  and  that  he  sold  too  few  to 
make  it  worth  while;  besides,  he  didn't  care 
especially  to  get  in  wrong  with  the  News.  So 
after  that  I  let  him  have  only  a  few  copies, 
and  I  went  out  and  sold  the  Dispatch  myself. 
There  were  a  number  of  subscribers  now. 
I  had  made  my  headquarters  in  Day's  tailor 
shop;  and  every  now  and  then  one  of  the 
callers  there  gave  me  a  quarter,  subscribing  to 
my  paper  for  a  month.  It  got  about  seventy- 
five  subscribers  that  way,  but  I  had  to  walk 
six  miles  a  day  to  deliver  them  all,  as  they 
lived  in  every  part  of  the  city.  Then  every 
day  I  went  out  and  peddled  papers  myself  on 
Old  Town  House  Square.  In  this  way  I  sold 
about  twenty-five  newspapers. 

[62] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

I  still  had  left  a  frock  coat  and  a  high  hat, 
principally  because  I  couldn't  get  anything 
for  them.  As  the  weather  got  colder  I  rein- 
forced my  thin  frock  coat  with  copies  of  the 
Dispatch  beneath  my  vest.  On  my  feet  I  had 
thin  low  shoes.  I  was  not  over-warm. 

A  few  weeks  before,  I  was  dodging  and  turn- 
ing down  side  streets  whenever  I  saw  any- 
body I  knew.  Now  I  stood  on  the  Public 
Square  and  sold  my  wares  without  a  quiver. 

It  was  worth  while  doing,  if  for  nothing 
else  than  for  its  glimpse  of  Town  House  Square 
and  the  politicians.  Salem  is  cut  in  two  by 
the  railroad,  and  there  is  practically  no  way  of 
getting  from  one  side  to  the  other  without  pass- 
ing through  Town  House  Square,  which  leads 
over  the  short  tunnel  of  the  railroad  through 
the  centre  of  the  city. 

The  population  of  the  city  passes  and  re- 
passes  the  spot.  Around  the  tiny  square,  the 

[63] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

cheap  curbstone  politicians,  who  for  the  past 
twenty  years  had  controlled  the  town,  met 
every  day  in  a  kind  of  sidewalk  caucus,  heard 
the  news,  and  settled  the  destinies  of  the  city. 

The  prominent  feature  on  the  corner  was 
the  leader  of  the  aldermen,  a  man  named 
Doyle  —  one  of  those  big,  silent,  "  mysterious 
Mike"  kind  of  Irishmen  who  say  nothing,  but 
listen  and  utter  monosyllables.  His  business 
was  that  of  ticket-taker  at  a  theatre.  He 
raised  a  large  family,  and  made  considerable 
investments  in  real  estate  and  even  corpora- 
tion stocks. 

Another  constant  attendant  was  an  ex- 
mayor,  "Col."  Peterson,  a  roaring,  rough-and- 
ready  politician  with  a  warlike  moustache  —  a 
loud  talker  and  a  lumpy  dresser,  with  a  hearty 
independent  habit  of  profanity. 

With  them,  often,  were  the  McSweeney 
boys,  minor  city  officials  and  politicians, 

[64] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

famous  locally  for  having  a  foot  in  all  political 
camps. 

The  political  editor  of  the  News,  one  of 
those  April  dressers  with  dark  brown  hat,  a 
light  brown  overcoat,  steel  gray  trousers,  and 
lavender  socks,  stood  with  them. 

It  was  a  curious  sight  to  see  the  men  who 
were  really  operating  the  affairs  of  the  city 
gathering  every  day  upon  old  Town  House 
Square.  It  was  the  sadness  of  the  thing  that 
struck  me,  the  solemnity  with  which  they  did 
their  duty.  Every  afternoon  they  met  to- 
gether, talked  over  the  affairs  of  the  city,  and 
spat  sadly  into  the  gutter. 

I  knew  nothing  about  politics.  I  had  paid 
absolutely  no  attention  to  it  all  my  life.  But 
I  could. scarcely  run  a  local  newspaper  and  not 
be  drawn  into  it. 


[65] 


CHAPTER  V 

rTT^HE  manager  of  a  theatre  sent  me  two 
tickets  for  every  performance.  After 
attending  several  performances  I  be- 
came convinced  that  the  Salem  people  were 
being  deceived.  The  News  received  from  this 
theatre  fifteen  hundred  dollars  a  year  for  ad- 
vertising, and  evidently  a  technical  agreement 
existed  between  them  to  praise  every  play  that 
came  there.  I  saw  a  performance  of  "  The 
Merry  Widow"  advertised  and  written  up  as 
being  identical  in  cast  and  scenery  as  the  New 
York  production.  The  only  likeness  between 
the  two  was  the  price  of  seats  —  two* dollars 
in  each  instance.  The  principals  were  inferior 
and  the  chorus  cut  in  half.  I  did  not  feel  that 
I  should  indulge  in  too  rabid  criticism,  but  it 

[66] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

did  seem  to  me  that  a  humorous  criticism  of  a 
minor  company,  which  had  been  loudly  her- 
alded by  the  News,  might  prove  a  popular 
move  and  perhaps  either  make  the  News  stop 
misleading  the  public  or  help  induce  the  man- 
ager to  give  better  shows. 

Some  of  my  readers  will  understand,  I  think, 
when  I  say  that  this  flippancy  of  style  —  my 
undignified  sense  of  humor  —  had  been  in 
nearly  every  crisis  of  my  life  my  one  defence 
against  the  flings  of  outrageous  fortune  and 
the  nearly  tragic  consequences  of  my  own  folly. 
It  was  what  finally  won  me  the  support  of  the 
people.  Even  the  most  serious  men  can  be 
reached  by  ridicule.  There  was  a  peculiar  sad- 
ness among  the  so-called  big  men  in  Salem, 
which  was  reflected  in  the  pages  of  the  News. 
No  one,  apparently,  had  ridiculed  anything 
until  I  came.  It  was  time,  I  thought,  for 
some  one  to  commence. 

[67] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

One  night  after  witnessing  a  performance  en- 
titled "  The  Cowboy's  Romance,"  I  returned 
to  the  Dispatch  office  to  write  a  criticism  of 
the  play.  It  was  the  beginning  of  our  dra- 
matic column,  and  the  first  occasion  when  we 
treated  a  serious  matter  flippantly. 

SATURDAY  NIGHT 

"THE  COWBOY'S  ROMANCE"  AT  THE  LOCAL 

THEATRE 

Up  to  Saturday  night  we  did  not  quite  know  what  to 
be  thankful  for  on  Thanksgiving,  because  ours  has  not 
been  a  bed  of  roses  this  last  year,  but  now  we  can  truly 
say  we  are  grateful  and  would  give  thanks  because  we 
have  seen  this  company. 

It  is  hard  to  understand  why  a  company  like  this 
comes  to  Salem.  They  should  be  playing  on  Broad- 
way alongside  of  Belasco's,  John  Drew,  and  Sothern. 
However,  that  is  their  business,  not  ours. 

Saturday's  attraction  was  "  The  Cowboy's  Romance," 
and  when  we  arrived,  a  beautiful  maiden  dressed  like 
Hiawatha  was  telling  the  hero  that  henceforth  she 
would  be  good.  It  seems  that  Helen  Brockway  (who 
wore  a  Mother  Hubbard  dress  of  eight-cents-a-yard 

[68] 


\ 
THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

calico)  had  a  father  who  promised  Brigham  Young's 
eighty-second  wife  that  he  would  make  her  the  wife  of 
some  one,  somewhere,  at  some  time,  all  of  which  was 
very  careless  of  him.  Whereupon,  Hiawatha  com- 
menced to  play  with  matches  in  the  window.  A  pistol 
went  off  and  a  man  dressed  like  Santa  Claus  was  killed. 

Everybody  told  lies  in  the  second  act  and  there  was 
a  beautiful  scene  where  Helen  Brockway  and  her 
father  wept  in  each  other's  arms;  never  mind  why. 
They  just  wept  —  perhaps  because  they  both  realized 
what  bad  actors  they  really  were. 

The  third  act  was  a  court  scene,  and  shades  of  Neal 
Dow  and  Father  Mathew!  what  do  you  think?  The 
judge  was  "pye-eyed,"  and  at  one  time  he  adjourned 
court  to  get  another  drink.  The  hero  called  the  villain  a 
"naughty  boy"  twice,  Hiawatha  refused  "tainted 
money,  "and  Helen  still  wore  her  eight-cent  calico  and 
was  a  perfect  lady.  Pistols  were  shot  off,  some  one 
said  "damn,"  and  His  Honor  was  "drunk  as  a  lord." 

WTien  the  curtain  fell  we  turned  to  our  neighbour  and 
said,  "Clarence,  would'st  thou  be  a  judge?"  "Lead 
on,  oh,  Brutus ! "  he  replied;  and  we  went  to  a  convenient 
drug  store,  showed  a  clerk  a  prescription  our  doctor 
gave  us  for  a  "thirst,"  which  he  had  already  made  up. 
Some  one  said,"  Here's  luck  ";  we  said,  "Drink  hearty"; 
and  something  was  said  about  "another." 

[69] 


THE    MAN     WHO    BUCKED    UP 

In  the  last  act  the  hero  and  the  villain  played  a  cute 
game  with  knives,  called  "You're  a  Thanksgiving 
turkey,  or,  I  will  cut  your  wishbone,"  which  was  very 
exciting.  No  one  was  hurt,  however,  until  a  man 
looking  like  Lydia  E.  Pinkham's  long-lost  brother,  and 
president  of  the  fat  men's  club,  shot  the  villain.  The 
heroine  arrived  in  the  same  dress,  gracefully  carrying 
a  transfer  ticket  to  Scollay  Square. 

And  we  went  home  to  tell  mother  all  about  it. 


The  manager  of  the  theatre  came  to  see  me. 
He  was  very  indignant.  I  explained  to  him 
that  presenting  such  plays,  fit  only  for  the 
Bowery,  and  advertising  them  as  Metropoli- 
tan successes,  would  hurt  his  theatre  in  the 
long  run  and  that  the  number  of  empty  seats 
nightly  was  a  proof  of  my  deductions.  I  also 
called  his  attention  to  the  fact  that  none  of 
the  actors  had  been  called  by  name  and  that 
it  was  all  written  in  good  humour,  but  he  would 
not  listen;  declared  he  was  offended  and  told 
me  that  my  free  seats  would  be  stopped. 

[70] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

We  had  been  publishing  just  a  month  when 
Day  sent  for  me  to  come  into  his  office  and 
introduced  me  to  "Link"  Allen,  one  of  the 
aldermen,  a  long-legged  man,  the  sonorous 
grandeur  of  whose  profanity  was  unequalled 
in  my  experience.  He  explained  to  me  in  a 
passionate  ecstasy  of  language  that  the  News 
had  criticised  severely  a  "junket"  taken  by  a 
city  government  committee  of  which  he  was 
chairman.  It  was  the  first  criticism  of  the 
kind  of  a  city  committee,  and  was  put  in,  he 
said,  by  a  city  official  who  was  a  stockholder 
in  the  News,  who  wasn't  invited  on  the  trip. 

The  alderman  brought  out  the  fact,  which  I 
already  understood  to  some  extent,  that  the 
stock  of  the  News  was  held  by  men  high  in  the 
political  and  business  management  of  the  city. 

"The  rest  of  the  people  don't  have  any 
show,"  said  Allen.  "They'll  print  what  they 
want  to." 

(71] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

Day  confirmed  this;  he  had  told  me  of  it, 
the  first  day  I  went  into  his  office,  as  the 
reason  why  a  newspaper  would  be  welcome. 

So  I  printed  "Link"  Allen's  letter  claiming 
that  the  cost  of  his  committee's  trip  had  not 
been  excessive  —  in  fact,  had  been  less  than  a 
recent  trip  of  the  Water  Board,  headed  by 
Alderman  Doyle.  With  this  letter  I  printed 
my  own  comment,  which  ended: 

If  anything  is  to  be  said,  let  us  have  it  all.  The 
Dispatch  may  be  relied  upon  for  a  square  deal  all  round. 

The  object  of  this  newspaper  is  to  give  the  whole 
news,  not  part  of  it,  and  also  to  see  that  all  have  fair  play. 

That  letter  and  editorial  gave  me  the  first 
real  instruction  about  what  the  public  wanted. 
I  knew  nothing  about  a  newspaper,  naturally; 
I  had  spent  my  life  in  the  jewellery  business. 
I  didn't  have  much  local  news;  we  hadn't 
anybody  to  gather  it.  I  had  been  publishing 
editorials  on  President  Eliot's  retirement,  the 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

Baconian  theory  of  Shakespeare,  and  similar 
topics. 

The  next  day  the  melancholy  congregation 
of  politicians  on  Town  House  Square  was 
thoroughly  stirred.  Alderman  Doyle  marched 
down  in  portentous  silence,  disappeared  into 
the  News  office,  and  held  a  long  and  gesticu- 
latory  interview  with  its  proprietor.  When 
the  News  came  out  at  eleven  o'clock,  it  bore 
the  cryptic  message: 

Some  people  are  saying  that  the  Water  Board's 
trip  cost  eighty-four  dollars.  But  such  is  not  the  case. 

One  thing  was  very  clear:  the  News  was  not 
going  in  any  way  to  recognize  our  existence. 
This  made  its  defence  of  Alderman  Doyle 
very  awkward.  It  seemed  to  me  that,  under 
the  circumstances,  it  would  be  a  good  idea  to 
take  a  shot  at  the  News.  So,  applying  the 
idea  of  its  own  Standard  Oil  editorials  to  the 

[73] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

local  situation,  I  opened  up  my  series  of 
"Octopus  Stories."  The  first  one  ran  like 
this: 

A  SIMPLE  TALE 

The  head  of  "The  Newspaper"  sat  in  his  office. 
His  fine,  intellectual  face  was  rapt  in  thought,  when 
suddenly  there  entered  one  of  the  staff. 

"Sire,"  said  he,  bowing  low,  "methinks  the  people 
are  on  to  us." 

"How?"  said  the  chief  nervously. 

"  Peradventure,  my  lord,"  continued  the  scribe, 
"they  say  this  is  not  a  newspaper,  but  a  spite  paper  — 
that  we  suppress  part  of  the  news  to  spite  others." 
The  great  man  raised  his  head  and  spoke  thus: 

"If  you  can  sting  Link,  why,  go  right  ahead; 
But  suppress  news  of  Doyle,"  the  great  man  said. 

A  pause. 

The  advertising  agent,  accompanied  by  the  editorial 
writer,  entered. 

"Most  learned  one,"  said  the  former,  "I  would 
advise  thee  that  the  advertisers  are  waking  up." 

Trembling  with  dread,  the  "Octopus"  roared: 
[74] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

"Quick!  Write  an  editorial  damning  the  Standard 
Oil.  Call  them  brigands.  It  always  takes,  and  will 
divert  the  advertisers  from  resenting  the  twenty-five 
per  cent,  advance,  and  the  readers  from  seeing  that  w« 
do  not  publish  all  the  news." 

Saying  which,  he  called  one  of  his  three  automobiles, 
and  was  whirled  away  to  his  palatial  home,  where  he 
composed  a  finely  worded  editorial  for  the  next  issue. 

There  was  little  doubt  that  tlie  editor  of 
the  News  was  excited  over  my  "Octopus 
Stories."  He  called  in  his  attorneys  and 
threatened  trouble. 

In  the  meantime  Lee  and  I  were  having  our 
troubles.  One  especially  cold  night  in  Novem- 
ber, when  we  were  sitting  dejectedly  around 
our  stove,  the  door  opened  and  Mr.  Peabody 
stepped  in.  He  gave  one  glance  around  the 
room  and  then  came  over  to  me  and  laid  his 
hand  on  my  shoulder,  saying  abruptly, 

"I  want  you  to  come  with  me." 

I  immediately  arose,  put  on  "  our  "  overcoat 
[75] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

that  Lee  had  just  returned,  and  went  with 
Mr.  Peabody  to  his  rooms.  We  walked  along 
in  silence,  each  buffeting  the  storm  as  best  he 
could,  for  this  was  no  night  for  conversation. 
Presently  I  found  myself  in  his  suite  of  rooms. 
He  took  my  hat  and  overcoat  somewhere  and 
in  a  moment  returned  and  led  me  into  a  cham- 
ber and  said  kindly,  "Go  to  bed."  I  was 
dumfounded,  but  obeyed.  Half  an  hour 
later  he  brought  me  a  delicious  omelette  and  a 
cup  of  steaming  coffee.  "I  am  quite  a  cook," 
he  remarked.  I  thought  so  too,  and  it  seemed 
to  me  that  I  had  never  tasted  anything  in  my 
life  quite  so  delicious.  He  sat  down  in  a  huge 
Morris  chair  in  the  room  and  chatted  with  me 
in  a  casual,  impersonal  way.  Perhaps  I 
ought  to  have  said  that  I  was  eating  my  meal 
in  bed.  When  I  had  finished  this  repast  I 
slipped  down  beneath  the  sheets.  What 
with  the  warmth  of  the  room,  the  comfortable 

[76] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED     UP 

softness  of  the  bed  and  my  square  meal, 
I  was  not  long  in  going  to  sleep,  leaving  Mr. 
Peabody  sitting  there  smoking  a  cigar.  The 
next  morning  he  asked  me  if  he  could  write 
to  any  of  my  relatives  or  friends.  "No," 
I  replied,  "I  have  none  now.  I've  made  my 
own  bed  and  must  lie  on  it.  Thank  you  very 
much  for  your  kindness.  Good-bye." 

When  I  was  halfway  downstairs  he  joined 
me. 

"I  shall  expect  you  back  to-night,  and  every 
night  until  you  get  a  home,"  he  said.  An- 
other example  of  New  England  and  its  people. 
I  lived  with  him  two  comfortable  weeks.  I 
enjoyed  his  books  and  our  talks.  He  liter- 
ally gave  me  a  new  lease  of  life.  Perhaps,  best 
of  all,  he  restored  my  self-respect. 


[771 


CHAPTER  VI 

WE  struggled  along  the  next  few  weeks 
the  best  we  could.  I  continued  my 
attacks  on  the  local  political  ring  and 
the  News.  The  more  I  looked  into  the  polit- 
ical management  of  the  place,  the  worse  it 
looked  to  me.  And  as  I  brought  out  one  thing 
after  another,  there  was  interest  and  friendly 
comment.  But  our  circulation  did  not  go 
up  appreciably.  We  had  just  about  a  hun- 
dred, and  nobody  would  advertise  with  us. 
We  had  little  enough  to  give  them,  and  all 
the  big  advertisers  were  hitched  up  with  the 
News  —  some  of  them  as  stockholders.  The 
rest  of  the  town  was  scared  to  death  of  it. 

Lee  and  I  grew  poorer  and  poorer.    Finally 
the  type  company  gave  notice  that  it  would 
IttJ 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

take  its  plant  away  at  eight  o'clock  the  next 
morning.  Lee  and  I  worked  all  night  and 
printed  six  editions  of  the  paper  ahead.  The 
only  difference  in  them  was  the  date-lines. 
The  next  day  the  old  printing-shop  at  Corn- 
hill  was  cleared  out.  The  mice  left  at  the 
same  time. 

We  had  six  days'  leeway.  All  that  week  I 
went  about  nearby  cities,  trying  to  get  some 
one  to  sell  me  a  printing  equipment.  I  found 
a  hand-press  and  some  type  in  a  second-hand 
shop  in  Boston,  which  the  owner  would  sell  for 
one  hundred  and  seventy-five  dollars,  but  he 
wanted  seventy-five  dollars  cash. 

The  sales  of  the  paper  meanwhile  dropped 
down  to  eleven  copies  a  day.  We  only  lasted 
the  week  out  by  again  calling  on  the  Boston 
manager  of  the  Standard  Oil  Company  and 
collecting  three  dollars  as  an  annual  sub- 
scription. 

[79] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

The  end  of  the  three  dollars  approached.  I 
had  got  the  second-hand-press  man  to  reduce 
his  cash  deposit  to  twenty-five  dollars.  But 
twenty-five  dollars  was  as  far  off,  practically, 
as  seventy-five  dollars.  So  I  went  dejectedly 
over  to  our  old  office  in  Cornhill  to  take  Lee 
out  and  give  him  a  plate  of  beans.  Lee  was 
cleaning  up  some  papers  in  a  corner. 

"Hello,"  he  said,  all  at  once;  "here  is 
that  motor  I  bought  of  the  Electric  Com- 
pany." 

That  saved  us.  The  motor,  Lee  said,  had 
cost  fifty  dollars.  I  ran  downstairs,  got  a 
truck  and  dragged  the  machine  around  to  the 
second-hand  shop.  The  owner  took  it,  agree- 
ing to  give  us  the  plant,  and  the  next  day  it 
was  shipped  down  to  Salem. 

I  had  thought  of  renting  the  "  House  of  the 
Seven  Gables."  It  was  closed  and  running  to 
decay,  and  I  could  have  rented  it  for  fifteen 

[80] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

dollars  a  month.  It  would  have  been  an 
excellent  advertisement  to  say  I  published  my 
paper  there.  But  just  before  I  arrived  a 
patriotic  Salem  woman  bought  it,  with  the 
purpose  of  preserving  it  as  a  memorial. 

So  I  went  to  "Link"  Allen  for  advice.  He 
showed  me  an  old  paint  shop  across  the  road 
from  his  coal  office,  which  I  hired  for  two  dol- 
lars a  week.  He  also  lent  me  a  desk  and  chair, 
and  sent  me  a  hundred  pounds  of  coal.  A 
second-hand  dealer,  who  was  a  member  of 
Allen's  aldermanic  committee,  whose  "jun- 
ket" Allen  had  defended  in  my  paper,  came  in, 
and  gave  me  an  old  stove  for  a  month's  ad- 
vertising. Lee  moved  into  a  room  over  the 
shop,  and  I  went  to  live  at  a  boarding-house. 

I  had  grown  very  fond  of  the  old  city,  partly 
because  I  found  its  people  very  friendly, 
partly  from  sentimental  reasons.  My  great- 
great-grandfather,  I  found,  had  been  quite  a 

[811 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

man  there.  He  had  founded  an  insurance 
company,  the  savings  bank,  and  a  mechanics' 
benefit  organization;  had  laid  out  the  common, 
and  had  had  a  street  named  after  him.  One 
of  the  bells  in  old  St.  Peter's  tower  was  a  me- 
morial to  him.  So  I  went  to  the  church,  and 
asked  which  had  been  my  great-great-grand- 
father's pew.  I  was  shown  to  a  large,  stall- 
like  pew  on  the  side,  which,  they  said,  had 
been  unoccupied  for  years.  I  immediately 
appropriated  it,  and  sat  there  ever  afterward. 

It  was  not  long  after  that  that  the  minister 
of  St.  Peter's  looked  me  up  at  my  office,  and 
had  a  long  talk  with  me  about  my  paper.  Up 
to  that  time  I  had  been  attacking  the  methods 
of  the  political  gang  in  charge  of  the  city  gov- 
ernment; but  I  had  no  particular  policy  or 
purpose  in  it,  unless  it  was  to  keep  myself  busy. 

Doctor  Bedinger  assumed  that  I  was  doing 
it  all  as  a  public  duty  and  praised  my  work  as 

[82] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

a  public  service.  My  constant  hammering 
of  the  politicians,  he  said,  could  not  fail  to 
benefit  Salem. 

This  gave  a  feeling  of  satisfaction  which  I 
had  not  before  experienced. 

But  we  were  certainly  about  at  the  end;  and 
we  could  not  seem  to  gain.  We  were,  in  fact, 
running  steadily  behind.  One  day  I  went  up 
to  Boston  to  see  if  I  couldn't  find  a  new  field. 
I  made  up  my  mind  that  I  was  through  with 
Salem. 

I  had  an  autograph  letter  of  Lincoln's 
which  I  had  carried  in  my  pocket  for  years. 
I  took  this  and  sold  it  to  a  dealer.  Then  I 
took  my  studs  and  links  and  collar-buttons 
and  sold  them  for  old  gold.  Altogether  I 
raised  eight  dollars  in  this  way.  I  wrote  a 
letter  to  Lee,  telling  him  I  had  quit  the  game, 
and  in  it  I  put  three  dollars  of  the  eight,  to 
give  him  carfare  to  his  old  home  in  Vermont. 

[83] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

I  stood  on  Washington  Street  a  minute, 
with  the  letter  in  my  hand,  before  mailing  it; 
and,  as  I  stood  there,  a  very  nice-looking 
elderly  man  with  a  white  beard  came  up  to 
me  and  said: 

"Isn't  this  Mr.  Howard?" 

"Yes,"  I  said. 

"Well,"  said  the  man,  "I  am  an  old  resi- 
dent of  Salem,  and  I  want  to  tell  you  that 
I  have  read  your  paper  with  interest.  I 
think  you  are  doing  a  great  public  good,  and  I 
hope  you  keep  up  your  fight.  Salem  is  sick 
of  those  old  political  gangs.  What  we  need 
at  the  head  of  the  city  government  is  a  man 
like  yourself.  I  hope  the  time  will  come  when 
I  shall  have  the  pleasure  of  casting  my  vote 
for  you  as  mayor." 

He  shook  my  hand,  patted  me  on  the  back, 
and  walked  down  the  street. 

It  took  me  just  fifteen  minutes  to  walk  to 
[84] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

the  railroad  station  and  start  back  to  Salem. 
Insane  as  it  might  seem,  I  had  conceived  the 
ambition  to  be  mayor  of  Salem. 

I  went  direct  to  my   boarding-house  and 
went  to  bed. 


[85] 


CHAPTER  VH 

THE   boarding-house  keepers  in  New 
England  are  always  called  "Ma,"  so 
my  landlady  told  me  after  telling  me 
her  real  name.     I  told  her  that  I  would  al- 
ways speak  most  respectfully  to  her,  but  she 
stuck  to  it  that  in  a  short  time  it  would  be 
"Ma,"  and  she  was  right. 

Evidently,  I  was  put  down  as  a  swell 
(though  by  this  time  my  one  suit  was  dis- 
tinctly shabby),  for  I  was  given  the  best  room 
in  the  house,  and  a  piece  of  steak  for  supper, 
while  the  others  ate  cold  meat  and  glared  at 
me. 

"Ma"  had  a  full  house  and  all  of  them  had 
nicknames.  There  was  a  young  contractor 
and  his  wife,  with  a  child.  Mr.  Contractor,  or 

[86] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

Clarence,  as  he  was  called,  was  very  quiet, 
and  from  the  outset  conceived  a  great  friend- 
ship for  me.  He  never  smiled,  but  was  at 
times  very  witty.  For  instance,  when  he 
had  finished  his  cold  meat,  he  said  to  the  land- 
lady's daughter,  "  Tell  your  mother  I  want  my 
supper,"  which  brought  down  the  house.  I 
may  as  well  say  at  the  outset  that  "  Ma"  was 
busted.  And  yet  she  was  a  rather  clever  finan- 
cier. For  instance,  she  arranged  her  board- 
er's rent  days  so  that  there  was  something 
due  each  day.  It  was  as  well.  Many  a  time 
at  5  P.  M.  there  was  an  aching  void  in  the 
larder.  Let  me  change  that  a  little,  for  we 
always  had  a  supply  of  beans.  Connecticut 
boasts  that  every  inch  of  its  ground  has  rocks 
or  stones,  Massachusetts  could  well  boast 
that  every  house  has  beans. 

"  Ma's"  family  consisted  of  "  Pa,"  a  son  who 
was  ia  the  candy  Business  somewhere,  aw4  a 

187] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

daughter,  aged  fourteen.  "Ma"  was  the 
whole  show  —  she  cooked,  made  beds,  swept, 
shopped,  played  the  piano,  gossiped  and  ran 
not  only  her  own  family  but  the  boarders  as 
well.  It  was  "  Pa's"  duty  to  get  up  and  make 
the  fire  at  5  A.  M.  He  never  failed  to  do  it, 
and  also  never  failed  to  take  a  good  long  drink 
out  of  the  milk  can.  He  was  daily  accused  of 
that  crime  and  daily  denied  it.  "Pa"  also 
was  detailed  to  keep  the  furnace  going.  It 
was  an  easy  job,  for  we  seldom  had  fuel  — 
that  is,  we  seldom  had  coal ;  but  sometimes  we 
had  a  supply  of  wood,  gratuitously  contrib- 
uted by  Clarence,  the  contractor,  in  sheer 
self-defence.  The  heating  scheme  was  cer- 
tainly original.  "Ma"  ordered  "Pa"  down 
to  make  a  fire  in  order,  she  said,  to  take  the 
chill  off  the  house.  After  the  fire  had  been 
going  an  hour,  "Ma"  would  say  to  "Pa," 
"You'd  better  let  the  fire  go  out." 
[88] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

"Don't  worry,"  "Pa"  would  reply,  "there 
ain't  no  more  wood  and  it's  going  out  by 
itself." 

Many  a  night  we  all  gathered  in  the  parlour 
and  had  an  open  fire,  "  Ma"  banging  the  piano, 
"Pa"  bringing  up  wood,  and  everybody  dread- 
ing to  go  to  his  room  because  of  the  cold.  But 
what  tales  we  told  each  other !  Through  what 
gigantic  misfortunes  had  we  not  passed !  Not 
only  were  we  all  formerly  very  rich,  but  our 
fortunes  had  all  been  lost  innocently,  through 
the  manipulation  of  others. 

There  was  one  rich  man,  though  —  rich 
for  Salem.  Probably  he  had  twenty  or  thirty 
thousand  dollars.  He  was  an  immaculate 
man,  with  fixed  habits,  which  never  swerved. 
One  of  these  was  his  periodical  "drunk"  — 
regularly  on  every  last  day  of  the  month.  He 
was  as  immaculate  drunk  as  sober;  and  it  has 
been  a  comfort  to  me  in  many  dark  days  to 

[89] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

remember  the  early  mornings  when  I  woke  and 
looked  out  my  chamber  door  to  behold  him 
parading  up  and  down  the  hall,  attired  in 
pajamas,  a  carefully  adjusted  necktie,  and  a 
silk  hat  —  studiously  removing  his  hat  every 
time  he  passed  the  gas  jet  in  the  centre,  and 
exclaiming  with  elaborate  courtesy,  "Good 
evening,  madam." 

Son  John  was  in  the  candy  business  out  of 
town  somewhere  and  he  used  to  write  the 
most  glowing  letters  home  to  "Ma,"  telling 
her  the  wonderful  success  he  was  going  to 
make,  ending  by  asking  for  a  loan  of  $3  or 
$5,  which,  by  the  way,  he  always  got.  It 
came  from  another  boarder  or  was  taken  out  of 
our  food.  One  thing  I  am  certain  of,  it  never 
came  from  me,  for  at  the  end  of  the  second 
week  I  was  behind  in  my  board.  But  my  land- 
lady was  crazy  about  the  theatre,  and  all  I  had 
to  do  was  to  pass  her  my  tickets,  now  restored 

[90] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

to  me  by  the  manager,  and  she  would  let  me 
go  without  paying.  Meantime,  the  rest  of 
the  boarders  were  finding  a  great  deal  of  fault, 
and  when  they  did,  "Ma"  would  always  call 
attention  to  the  fact  that  she  was  glad  that 
there  was  one  gentleman  in  the  house,  point- 
ing to  me  as  a  good  example  for  them  to  fol- 
low. As  I  was  not  paying  any  money,  I  could 
not  see  how  I  could  put  up  much  of  a  kick. 
Every  Saturday  night  we  used  to  have  a 
party,  for  which  each  of  the  boarders  chipped 
in  thirty-five  cents.  It  began  with  playing 
cards,  usually  hearts,  four  being  seated  at  the 
table.  There  were  no  prizes,  but  after  we 
had  played  for  about  half  an  hour  some  one 
would  go  down  to  the  nearest  store  and  get 
some  cheese,  candy  and  rich  cakes,  and  we 
would  have  a  chafing  dish  party  and  gorge 
ourselves.  The  weekly  treat  was  looked  for- 
ward to  by  all  of  us  and  nobody  seemed  to 

[91] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

know  what  it  meant  to  temper  his  appetite 
with  judgment.  The  cards  would  be  for- 
gotten, we  would  eat  until  every  plate  was 
clean  and  we  were  completely  stuffed. 

I  think  the  mornings  were  the  funniest.  I 
used  to  get  up  about  eleven  o'clock  and  go 
down  to  the  dining-room.  "Pa"  would  come 
in  and  say: 

"Good  morning,  Mr.  Howard.  What  will 
you  have  for  breakfast?" 

I  would  order  a  poached  egg.  Whereupon, 
he  would  go  into  the  kitchen  and  the  walls  being 
very  thin,  I  could  hear  him  yell  to  "Ma": 

"What  the  hell  do  you  think?  he  has  or- 
dered eggs  and  coffee!  I  think  that  man  has 
got  more  nerve  than  any  man  I  ever  saw  in 
my  life.  We  never  see  the  colour  of  his  money, 
yet  he  orders  stuff  just  as  though  he  owned 
the  house.  I  will  give  him  a  talking  to  when 
I  take  his  breakfast  in  to  him." 

[92] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

Then  a  long  conversation  would  ensue  in 
low  tones  and  "Ma"  would  walk  down  the 
hall,  open  the  door,  and  call  to  "Pa"  to  come. 
Then  she  would  usually  deliver  the  following 
dramatic  order,  entirely  as  if  it  were  final  and 
she  meant  it: 

"  I  want  you  to  depart  out  of  this  house  for- 
ever. Don't  dare  to  come  back  again." 

He  would  walk  out  of  the  door  and  she 
would  bang  it  and  lock  it.  Then  she  would 
bring  in  my  breakfast,  sit  down  and  have  a 
little  talk.  Whenever  he  was  fired  out  of  the 
house  this  way,  which  occurred  about  four 
times  a  week,  he  would  hang  around  until  one 
of  the  boarders  came  along  with  the  key,  and 
then  he  would  say: 

"I  have  lost  my  key.  Won't  you  let  me 
in?" 

Whereupon  we  would  let  him  go  in,  and  he 
would  sneak  up  to  his  room  in  the  garret,  to 

[93] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

reappear  the  next  morning  at  five  o'clock  and 
generously  help  himself  to  the  milk  or  any- 
thing that  happened  to  be  in  the  refrigerator. 
It  was  drawing  near  Christmas.  We  were 
dreadfully  hard  up  at  the  Dispatch  office.  I 
published  the  following  article  in  our  paper 
with  the  idea  of  bringing  in  some  money. 

TO  OUR  SUBSCRIBERS 

A    PITEOUS   APPEAL    FOR    CASH 

The  day  after  to-morrow  is  Christmas  Day,  and  we 
feel  that  it  is  a  good  time  to  make  an  appeal,  and  again 
there  is  a  yawning  abyss  that  must  be  filled. 

In  their  enthusiastic  appreciation  of  our  efforts, 
many  handsome  sons  of  Adam  and  lovely  daughters  of 
Eve  subscribed  to  our  paper,  and  each  and  every  morn- 
ing, beside  their  delicious  coffee  and  appetizing  eggs, 
they  have  read  our  bright  little  comments  on  life  and 
events,  and  we  have  felt  that  somehow  we  were  making 
life  brighter  for  them,  but  we  are  afraid  that  we  have 
lifted  our  readers  to  realms  above  the  ordinary  things 
of  life,  because  while  they  continue  to  digest  our  ob- 
servations and  appreciate  our  repartee,  they  forget 
the  small  sums  due  for  subscriptions. 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

All  day  we  have  flirted  with  the  cash  drawer,  but, 
sad  to  relate,  it  contains  only  a  few  pennies  and  some 
stamps.  Think,  gentle  reader,  think  of  the  high  liter- 
ary merit  of  this  publication,  and  then  remember 
that  it  is  all  written  on  this  daily  bill  of  fare: 

Breakfast  —  Coffee. 

Lunch  —  Crackers  and  milk. 

Supper  —  Beans. 

Seriously  and  honestly,  we  would  like  (just  for  a  day) 
to  renew  our  acquaintance  with  a  piece  of  roast  beef, 
or  look,  once  more,  a  chicken  in  the  face. 

We  are  not  ashamed  of  our  shiny  elbows,  we  do  not 
complain  of  the  bitter  cold,  or  remark  on  the  hardness 
of  our  couch;  to  those  things  we  are  accustomed.  But 
it  is  very  hard  work  to  write  an  editorial  wishing  every 
one  a  Merry  Christmas  with  only  nine  cents  in  one's 
clothes. 

So  please  sit  down  and  write  us  a  check,  and  on  the 
receipted  bill  we  will  tell  you  how  much  obliged  we  are. 
But  even  if  you  fail  us,  we  will  love  you  just  the  same, 
and  try  to  eat  our  beans  with  a  cheerful  face  and  a 
thankful  heart. 

The  night  before  Christmas  was  the  worst 
I  ever  experienced  in  my  life.  Lee  and  I  had 

[05] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

eighty  cents  between  us.  My  landlady  had 
told  me  that  I  must  produce  some  money  or 
get  out,  so  I  threw  a  few  things  into  my  bag 
and  took  up  lodgings  with  Lee  at  the  shop. 
We  bought  sixty  cents'  worth  of  paper  to 
bring  out  the  paper  the  day  after  Christmas, 
and  as  a  result  we  went  to  bed  that  night  with- 
out anything  to  eat,  keeping  the  twenty  cents 
for  Christmas,  when  we  knew  no  money  would 
come  in.  Christmas  morning  at  ten  o'clock 
Lee  and  I  had  beans  for  ten  cents.  At  5 
p.  M.  we  had  them  again. 

From  the  time  I  was  sixteen  years  old  I  had 
eaten  my  lunch  at  Delmonico's  in  New  York. 
During  those  twenty-two  years  I  cannot  rec- 
ollect ever  having  given  the  waiter  less  than 
a  quarter  every  time  I  was  served,  with  a  ten- 
dollar  bill  at  Christmas  to  the  head  waiter 
who  helped  me  spend  my  money.  What 
foolish,  vain  people  we  are  in  New  York! 

[96] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

How  we  recklessly  spend,  thinking  that  we 
"  must"  eat  always  at  a  fashionable  restaurant, 
and  how  hard  it  is  afterward  to  sit  on  a  stool 
in  a  chilly  restaurant,  with  threadbare  clothes, 
and  eat  five  cents'  worth  of  beans  for  a  Christ- 
mas dinner!  Poverty  may  not  be  a  crime, 
but  when  one  has  had  every  luxury  for  years 
and  then  sinks  to  almost  a  beggar,  how  it 
does  cut  to  the  heart!  It  isn't  the  cold,  the 
shiny  clothes,  or  the  food.  It  isn't  any  special 
reason.  It's  the  humiliation  of  it  all.  One 
does  not  think  of  poverty;  the  words  that 
ring  through  the  head  are,  "Fool!  Fool! 
Fool!" 

The  next  day  the  tide  turned  a  little.  I 
received  a  letter  from  my  landlady,  delivered 
by  "Pa,"  in  which  she  told  me  to  come  back 
to  the  house,  that  I  was  no  trouble,  and  that 
she  would  be  glad  to  have  me  stay  for  five 
years,  provided  I  should  be  willing  to  occupy 

[97] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

the  smallest  bedroom  in  the  house.  I  was 
told  to  come  to  dinner,  and  to  come  early.  I 
went  and  got  there  about  ten  minutes  of 
twelve.  The  table  was  all  set  with  a  great 
quantity  of  food.  I  helped  myself  to  some 
bread  and  butter  and  cake  and  fruit,  which  I 
put  inside  my  coat  and  buttoned  it  up  tight. 
After  I  had  eaten  my  own  dinner,  I  went 
down  and  gave  what  I  had  taken  off  the  table 
to  Lee,  who  was  half  starved.  That  night 
Link  came  in  and  commenced  to  swear  at  us 
in  his  usual  manner  for  four  or  five  minutes, 
after  which  he  sat  down,  and  said  that  his 
wife  had  made  a  cake  which  had  been  a  com- 
plete failure.  He  wanted  to  get  rid  of  it,  so 
had  brought  it  down  to  us.  Whereupon,  he 
opened  a  box  filled  with  cake,  fruit,  cold 
chicken,  and  candy,  and  two  dozen  cigars. 
Lee  and  I  ate  for  an  hour,  and  smoked  cigars 
until  four  in  the  morning.  Delmonico's  most 

[981 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

famous  chef  never  produced  a  meal  that  was 
more  appreciated. 

The  next  night  "  Ma"  asked  me  if  I  would 
care  to  buy  five  boxes  of  candy  made  by  her 
son.  She  said  that  all  the  boarders  in  the 
house  were  taking  some,  and  that  if  I  would 
put  an  advertisement  in  the  Dispatch  about  it, 
she  would  give  me  five  boxes.  I  put  the  ad- 
vertisement in  and  received  the  five  boxes 
of  candy.  The  next  night  we  had  a  Christ- 
mas Tree  at  my  boarding-house,  and  "Ma" 
said  that  we  should  all  give  one  another  some 
little  souvenir  of  the  occasion.  I  wrapped  up 
the  candy  and  put  it  up  on  the  Christmas  Tree 
for  my  fellow  boarders.  When  the  presents 
were  given  out,  I  found  that  nearly  every  one 
in  the  house  had  adopted  my  idea,  and  in  con- 
sequence I  got  three  boxes  of  the  same  stuff 
back  from  the  other  boarders.  Two  or  three 
nights  later,  when  "Ma"  was  very  hard  up, 

[99] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

a  man  came  to  the  kitchen  door  selling  some 
pies.  "Ma"  took  two  pies  of  him,  telling 
him  to  come  back  for  the  money.  She 
brought  them  to  the  dining-room,  put  them  on 
the  table,  where  each  one  was  cut  in  four 
pieces.  Just  after  they  had  been  served  to  us, 
we  heard  a  terrible  row  going  on  in  the  kitchen. 
It  was  the  pie  man  demanding  his  money  or 
the  pies  back.  Most  of  the  boarders  caught 
the  gist  of  what  was  going  on.  Clarence  then 
exclaimed: 

"This  is  our  last  chance  if  we  want  to  eat 
the  pies." 

I  suggested  that  we  gobble  them  as  quickly 
as  we  could.  We  had  just  got  them  down 
when  "Ma"  came  into  the  room  and  told  us 
that  she  would  have  to  have  them  back.  I  do 
not  know  how  it  ended,  because  I  had  an  en- 
gagement that  took  me  right  out  of  the  house. 
Most  of  the  boarders  seemed  to  have  engage- 
[100] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

ments  at  the  same  time,  and  we  all  fled  down 
the  street,  leaving  "Ma"  and  the  pie  man 
trying  to  figure  out  whether  he  would  get  the 
twenty  cents  or  the  pies.  A  sordid  existence? 
Yes;  and  the  sort  of  existence  the  majority  of 
us  lead  in  these  United  States  —  the  sort  of 
existence  when  one  may  be  honest,  but  not 
always  honourable  in  the  strict  sense  under- 
stood by  the  well-housed  people. 


[101] 


CHAPTER 

AID  now  I  sat  down  to  think.     What 
was  I  going  to  do?    What  was  the 
policy  of  my  paper?     What  was  my 
ultimate  object?     So  far,   every  move   had 
been  forced  upon  me.     I  had  merely  done  the 
best  I  could  under  the  circumstances,  had 
merely  tried  to  live  or  rather  exist;  but  now  I 
felt  that  I  must  have  some  definite  policy. 

When  one  is  poor  and  hard  pressed,  it 
develops  the  powers  of  observation.  Little 
things  that  formerly  escaped  my  eye  now  be- 
came the  most  prominent.  So  far  I  had  only 
attacked  the  News  and  its  owner  and  de- 
fended "  Link,"  but  already  I  was  a  marked 
man.  The  McSweeneys,  Doyle  and  Colonel 
Peterson  would  glare  at  me  from  the  moment 
11021 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

I  came  in  view  until  I  passed  out  of  sight. 
They  had  to  glare  at  me.  They  had  to  hate 
me.  The  News  co*uld  ruin  any  one  of  them  in 
two  days'  time.  I  had  a  newspaper  to  reply 
with  in  case  I  was  attacked;  the  McSweeneys, 
Doyle  and  the  Colonel  had  none.  At  first 
I  rather  pitied  their  lack  of  courage;  but  I  was 
learning  very  fast.  Constant  observation, 
constant  inquiries,  constant  hunting  through 
city  records,  told  me  a  more  serious  reason; 
told  me  how  these  same  men  had  all  the  city 
plums  and  the  News  had  praised  them.  I 
uncovered  deal  after  deal;  liquor  licenses  only 
given  out  to  those  that  had  a  pull  or  paid  for 
them;  street-paving  contracts  given  to  in- 
siders; men  employed  in  the  water  depart- 
ment not  for  their  ability  but  in  order  to  make 
votes  for  Doyle.  A  more  complicated  state  of 
affairs  I  had  never  heard  of.  It  was  ring  within 
ring  within  ring.  It  would  take  ten  volumes  to 
[103] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UT 

tell  it  all  (a  story  in   its   main   lines  familiar 
enough  to  students  of  our  political  history). 

Sufficient  to  state  that  every  one  "had  some- 
thing" on  every  one  else;  therefore  reform 
could  never  come.  Every  political  camp  had 
its  own  particular  pull.  The  water  and  street 
departments  employed  eight  hundred  men 
and  had  the  spending  of  $100,000  a  year. 
Doyle  was  absolute  boss  in  both  departments. 
Peterson's  firm  always  got  the  building  con- 
tracts. It  made  no  difference  who  put  in  the 
lowest  bid.  Sufficient  to  say  "they  got  it." 
The  McSweeneys  absolutely  controlled  the 
liquor  situation.  Morgan,  as  a  license  com- 
missioner, had  the  power  to  give  out  the 
licenses,  providing  his  brother  Parker  got  the 
insurance  and  his  brother  William  got  the 
legal  business.  There  was  only  one  man 
higher  in  liquordom  than  the  McSweeneys, 
and  that  was  "Mike"  Sullivan  the  famous 
[104] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

lawyer.  Sullivan  was  attorney  for  the  News, 
the  railroads,  some  big  brewers  in  Boston,  and 
all  the  corporations.  He  was  said  to  controlf  our- 
teen  out  of  thirty-seven  of  the  licenses,  and  the 
McSweeneys  never  disputed  these  privileges  of 
Mike's  because,  Sullivan  represented  too  much 
money.  So  after  all,  each  group  was  a  check  on 
the  others.  Doyle  needed  the  McSweeneys'  in- 
fluence for  votes,  the  Colonel  needed  Doyle's 
and  the  McSweeneys'  votes  for  contracts,  and 
they  all  needed  Mike  Sullivan  legally. 

George  Day,  the  tailor,  was  right  when  he 
said  that  the  News  backed  them  all  up.  One 
had  only  to  read  back  a  few  years  to  see  how 
the  News  explained  the  reasons  for  the  actions 
of  all  those  men.  Such  items  as  these  were 
constantly  appearing: 

"  Although  Colonel  Peterson's  firm  did  not  make  the 
lowest  bid,  it  has  been  awarded  them,  as  the  committee 
wanted  the  work  to  go  to  a  local  contractor." 

[1051 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

"License  Commissioner  McSweeney  is  having  much 
credit  given  him  for  his  fairness  and  good  judgment  in 
allotting  the  licenses." 

"Alderman  Doyle  insists  that  citizens  of  Salem  only 
shall  be  employed  in  the  street  and  water  depart- 
ments. This  act  is  warmly  commended." 

The  News  failed  to  state  that  Doyle  em- 
ployed citizens  because  he  wanted  votes,  and 
it  also  failed  to  say  that  the  Colonel  used 
Italians,  Poles,  or  any  nationality,  merely 
trying  to  get  the  cheapest  labour.  It  was  a 
magnificent  system  that  this  Ring  ran.  The 
absence  of  another  newspaper  made  it  pos- 
sible. 

What  impressed  me  most  was  these  oc- 
casional remarks  heard  on  any  street  cor- 
ner: 

"The  licenses  are  a  good  thing  for  the  Mc- 
Sweeneys." 

"The  building  contracts  have  been  a  good 
thing  for  the  Colonel." 
[106] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

"The  Water  Board  has  been  a  good  thing 
for  Doyle." 

No  man  was  ever  mentioned  as  having 
been  "a  good  thing  for  the  city."  I  thought 
I  saw  my  opportunity. 


[107] 


CHAPTER  IX 

TO  an  unprejudiced  observer  the  chance 
of  realizing  my  ambition  to  become 
the  mayor  of  Salem  would  certainly 
not  have  seemed  great  when  I  returned  from 
Boston  cherishing  it  in  January,  1909.     The 
main  question  was  whether  I  could  continue 
to  make  a  living  there. 

I  had  begun  to  see  what  kind  of  a  news- 
paper I  must  publish.  It  must  treat  the  big 
local  issues,  which  my  competitor,  the  News, 
avoided.  I  heard  many  expressions  of  ap- 
proval as  I  adopted  this  policy.  For  instance, 
I  had  occasion  to  go  into  one  of  the  big  shoe 
factories  one  day,  and,  as  I  walked  through  the 
room  where  the  men  were  working,  I  saw  a  copy 
of  the  Dispatch  lying  on  one  of  the  benches, 
[108] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

almost  worn  to  shreds.  One  of  the  workmen 
told  me  that  they  passed  it  around  at  lunch- 
time,  and  over  forty  men  saw  it  each  day. 

At  the  same  time  my  circulation  stood  still 
around  one  hundred,  and  I  got  practically  no 
advertising.  So  we  had  to  hustle  even  to  get 
paper  to  print  upon. 

One  Thursday  night,  I  remember,  we  were 
entirely  out  of  paper.  Our  money  was  gone. 
I  tried  to  buy  from  the  local  printers.  I  went 
into  executive  session  with  myself,  and  finally 
produced  an  idea.  So  I  started  out  for  the 
nearest  grocery  store,  and  asked  the  proprietor 
if  he  would  give  me  a  few  sheets  of  wrapping- 
paper.  He  told  me  to  help  myself,  and  I  took 
two  or  three  sheets.  I  repeated  this  operation 
at  some  twenty  grocery  stores,  and  finally  suc- 
ceeded in  getting  enough  to  print  about  a 
hundred  copies  for  our  next  morning's  edition. 
The  sheets  were  different  shades  of  brown, 
[100] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

and  different  thicknesses;  so,  after  this  edition 
was  printed,  we  went  over  the  thinner  sheets 
and  filled  out  with  pen  and  ink  the  places 
where  the  type  had  failed  to  print. 

As  to  ink,  we  were  more  fortunate.  It  was 
supplied  to  us  through  our  chief  stock  in  trade, 
the  ill-will  toward  our  competitor.  An  ink 
salesman  came  into  our  office  early,  and  let 
us  have  a  barrel  of  ink  on  our  own  terms,  on 
account  of  an  old  grievance  against  his  treat- 
ment by  Damon,  the  publisher  of  the  News. 

"I  don't  care  if  you  never  pay  for  it,"  he 
said. 

There  was  no  expense  for  labour.  Lee  did 
the  typesetting,  and  we  turned  out  the  papers 
on  a  foot-press  by  the  two-man  power  of  the 
firm.  Lee  slept  in  the  printing  plant.  But  it 
required  great  mental  effort  to  provide  our 
daily  food. 

For  some  weeks  I  stayed  at  the  boarding- 
[110] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

house.  But  matters  were  going  almost  as 
badly  with  "Ma"  and  "Pa"  as  with  us. 
Finally  "Ma"  announced  that  hereafter  she 
would  serve  no  more  meals  on  Sundays.  This 
was  a  sudden  and  disastrous  blow  for  me.  I 
was  getting  credit  at  the  boarding-house;  but 
where  could  I  provide  actual  cash  to  feed  my- 
self over  Sunday? 

The  first  two  Sundays  I  got  through  all 
right,  but  I  woke  up  on  the  third  without  a 
cent.  All  I  could  do  was  to  hunt  diligently 
for  some  one  who  would  take  me  out  to  din- 
ner. I  wandered  around  in  vain  until  one 
o'clock,  when  I  ran  across  Harry  Curtis,  one 
of  my  acquaintances  in  Day's  tailor  shop.  I 
asked  him  if  he  had  dined,  and  he  said  he  was 
just  through  dinner  and  was  on  his  way  to  the 
club.  So  I  went  down  to  the  club  with  him, 
and  we  sat  together  in  the  window,  watching 
the  people  passing.  I  was  desperately  hungry. 
[Ill] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

We  had  been  there  a  little  while,  when  we 
began  to  talk  about  Augustus  Thomas'  play. 
"The  Witching  Hour."  Harry  said  he  be- 
lieved in  the  theory  of  the  play  —  that  it  was 
possible  to  concentrate  your  thoughts  on  some 
one  and  make  him  do  as  you  wished.  I  im- 
mediately started  trying  it  out. 

For  over  an  hour  I  talked  about  nothing 
but  food.  I  described  in  detail  different  ban- 
quets I  had  attended,  and  their  menus.  Fin- 
ally Harry  moved  uneasily,  got  up,  and  said: 
"Gee,  I'm  hungry;  let's  go  and  have  some- 
thing to  eat." 

"I've  only  got  enough  money  to  buy  sup- 
per," said  I,  "and  I  don't  care  to  pay  for  an 
extra  meal." 

"Oh,  that's  all  right,"  said  Harry.  "It's 
my  treat." 

So  I  was  fed  again. 

But  it  was  hard  work,  especially  as  I  had  to 
[112] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

do  all  the  planning.  After  a  while  I  had  to 
give  up  taking  my  meals  at  the  boarding-house 
and  only  roomed  there.  And  Lee  and  I 
stayed  in  the  shop,  and  warmed  what  food  we 
could  get  over  the  little  stove  in  the  office. 
We  lived  on  as  little  as  one  dollar  a  week 
apiece. 

Even  then  we  almost  came  to  a  stop. 
Every  night  I  would  come  in  with  the  receipts 
of  the  day,  and  we  would  sit  together  by  the 
stove  and  rest. 

"We've  got  to  do  something,"  I'd  say. 

"That's  right,"  old  Lee  would  answer,  wag- 
ging his  head  up  and  down. 

"Right  off,  too,"  I'd  say. 

"Yep,  that's  right,"  he'd  agree,  and  wag  his 
head  again  feebly  —  and  sit  staring  at  the  floor. 

The  night  after  we  printed  our  wrapping- 
paper  edition,  we  found  ourselves  on  the  dead 
centre  again,  with  just  a  few  cents  between  us. 
[113] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

So  I  turned  and  suggested  to  Lee  that  he  let 
me  interview  him  on  his  impressions  of  Salem. 
He  did.  He  gave  me  one  of  the  strongest 
interviews  I  ever  heard  concerning  Salem  in 
about  one  hundred  words.  I  wrote  it  out  and 
headed  it  "An  interview  with  a  Prominent 
Citizen."  We  had  just  three  sheets  of  paper 
left. 

We  printed  these.  Lee  had  a  few  coppers; 
so,  when  we  were  done,  I  turned  to  him  and 
offered  to  sell  him  the  whole  edition  for  three 
cents.  Lee  didn't  fully  understand  the  trans- 
action, but,  as  usual,  he  trusted  to  my  judg- 
ment and  handed  over  the  three  cents,  took 
the  three  newspapers,  and  put  them  into  his 
box,  as  I  suggested. 

Our  paper  was  like  nothing  on  earth  in  those 
days ;  and  especially  peculiar  editions  still  com- 
mand high  prices  locally,  after  the  fashion  of 
rare  postage  stamps. 

[114] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

That  morning  at  nine  o'clock  we  were  sit- 
ting mournfully  in  the  office,  still  wondering 
how  we  would  get  breakfast,  when  the  door 
opened  and  a  fresh  politician,  who  bought  our 
paper  every  day,  came  in. 

"Is  your  little  paper  out  this  morning?" 
said  he. 

"Yes,"  said  I. 

He  took  a  penny  out  of  his  pocket  and 
tossed  it  to  me,  saying: 

"Well,  give  us  a  copy  of  it." 

"The  entire  edition  is  sold  out,"  I  said. 

"That's  funny,"  said  he.  "Anything  spe- 
cial in  it  this  morning?" 

*  There  was  an  interview  that  was  sent  us 
last  night,"  I  replied.  "The  man  regretted 
it  afterward,  and  bought  up  the  entire  edi- 
tion." 

Our  fresh  friend  stood  around  for  a  few  min- 
utes. Finally  he  put  his  hand  in  his  pocket 
[1151 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

and  pulled  out  a  lot  of  silver,  saying:  "I 
tell  you  what  I'll  do  with  you:  I'll  give  you 
hah*  a  dollar  for  a  copy." 

"Sorry,"  I  said,  "but  we  are  all  sold  out." 

"Haven't  you  got  a  single  copy?"  he  asked. 

"Not  one,"  I  said. 

"How  on  earth  can  I  get  one?" 

"I  can't  help  you  out,"  I  said  to  him,  "but 
if  you  want  to  be  sure  in  future,  the  way  to  do 
is  to  become  a  yearly  subscriber;  then  we  are 
forced  to  deliver  the  paper  no  matter  what's 
in  it." 

At  that  he  drew  out  some  bills  and  laid 
down  three  dollars,  saying:  "Put  me  down 
for  a  year." 

Before  that  night  we  had  four  or  five  new 
yearly  subscribers  at  three  dollars  apiece  from 
other  men,  whom  our  friend  had  spoken  to 
during  the  day.  So  the  Dispatch  went  011 
again. 

[116] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

But  there  is  a  turning-point  to  everything, 
and  by  and  by  ours  came.  More  than  any- 
thing else,  it  was  due  to  my  friends  —  Bill 
Sanborn,  who  gave  me  my  first  cordial  greet- 
ing to  Salem,  and  "Ed"  Allen,  whom  he  spoke 
to  me  about  that  first  day  of  my  newspaper. 
The  crowd  which  gathered  about  Day's  shop 
were  growing  enthusiastic  about  the  Dis- 
patch, as  it  waded  into  local  affairs.  "Link" 
Allen,  the  alderman,  whose  letter  had  brought 
the  paper  into  politics,  was  a  good-hearted 
fellow.  He  made  a  specialty  of  supplying 
me  with  cigars,  the  one  indulgence  I  retained. 
Both  Sanborn  and  "Ed"  Allen  were  always 
doing  me  some  kindness  in  an  unobtrusive 
way. 

One  day,  while  we  were  all  in  Day's  office, 
Sanborn  suggested  a  method  of  getting  myself 
and  my  newspaper  before  the  public.  He 
proposed  to  get  me  an  invitation  to  speak  at 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

the  annual  meeting  of  the  Now  and  Then 
Association,  an  organization  of  eight  hundred 
of  the  young  business  men  of  the  city,  and 
finally  he  manoeuvred  until  he  secured  the 
opportunity  for  me. 

It  was  something  of  an  anxiety  to  me  — 
the  question  of  getting  to  that  banquet.  Both 
of  my  dress-suits  were  in  a  pawnshop  in  Bos- 
ton and  I  hadn't  a  cent  to  get  them  out  with. 
Finally  I  went  to  the  pawnbroker  in  Boston, 
and  talked  him  into  letting  me  have  a  suit  for 
that  night.  It  took  an  hour's  talking,  but  I 
came  out  of  the  store  with  the  suit  on,  leaving 
behind  the  suit  I  had  been  wearing,  and  a 
written  agreement  to  bring  the  dress-clothes 
back  the  next  day.  I  spent  a  good  while 
dressing,  especially  in  repairing  my  only  pair 
of  shoes,  which  were  badly  cracked  across 
the  top.  But  I  finally  blacked  them  up  so 
I  could  wear  them. 

[118] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

The  toastmaster  was  a  man  from  the  News 
office.  The  first  speaker  was  the  mayor  of 
Salem,  John  F.  Hurley;  after  him  a  politician 
from  Boston  spoke  on  state  affairs,  a  clergy- 
man talked  on  "Good  Behaviour,"  and  an  ex- 
president  of  the  association  followed  him.  A 
more  melancholy  collection  of  human  speech 
was  never  put  together.  It  was  after  ten 
o'clock,  and  the  man  from  the  News  office,  who 
was  toastmaster,  arose  and  said  with  crushing 
emphasis : 

"We  have  only  a  few  minutes  left;  and  I 
now  introduce  Arthur  Howard,  the  editor  of 
the  Dispatch. 

Whereupon  he  took  his  watch  from  his 
pocket  and  laid  it  down  in  front  of  me.  So  I 
arose  before  my  first  audience  in  Salem.  It 
was  a  chilly  one.  I  had  been  warned  by  Bill 
not  to  be  too  serious. 

"Isn't  it  rather  dangerous,  Mr.  Toast- 
[119] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

master,"  I   said,  "to  place  your  watch  in 
front  of  me,  knowing  my  financial  condition? " 

They  sat  up  and  laughed  a  little  at  that. 

"Mr.  Toastmaster  and  gentlemen,"  I  said, 
"you  will  notice  that  I  do  not  call  you  friends, 
and  I  will  tell  you  the  reason  why. 

"A  number  of  years  ago  a  Salem  boy  came 
to  New  York  and  enlisted  in  a  local  regiment. 
The  first  week  that  he  was  in  it,  the  regiment 
went  into  camp,  and  the  Salem  boy  was  put 
on  guard  outside  the  Colonel's  tent.  Late 
that  night  the  Colonel  came  home.  The  sentry 
had  never  seen  him  before. 

"As  the  Colonel  approached  his  tent,  the 
Salem  boy  stepped  forward  and  said,  'Who 
goes  there?' 

"A  friend,"  said  the  Colonel. 
'You're  a  liar,'  said  the  Salem  boy.     'I 
never  saw  you  before  in  my  life.'    And  so, 
gentlemen,"  I  continued,  "if  I  said  friends,  I 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

am  fearful  you  would  all  jump  up  and  say: 
'You're  a  liar,  Howard.  We  never  saw  you 
before  in  our  lives." 

My  audience  laughed  at  this,  and  I  quickly 
followed  it  with  a  few  humorous  anecdotes 
about  members  of  the  club,  and  closed  with  a 
reference  to  my  independent  position  as  a 
newspaper  man.  My  speech  took  just  ten 
minutes  to  deliver,  and  I  ended  it  as  follows: 

!<  You  probably  wonder  what  I  am  doing  in 
Salem,  and  I  think  I  ought  to  explain  to  you 
that  I  publish  a  newspaper  here  called  the 
Dispatch,  the  circulation  of  which  reaches 
2,999.  Some  of  you  gentlemen  look  doubtful, 
so  let  me  explain  here  where  the  copies  go. 

"We  have  an  annual  subscriber,  the  Essex 
Institute,  which  is  compelled  to  subscribe 
by  its  charter;  I  give  one  copy  to  my  land- 
lady in  part  payment  for  my  food;  seven  cop- 
ies are  actually  sold  on  the  streets  for  cash; 
[121] 


THE    MAN  WHO    BUCKED    UP 

and  2,990  copies  are  given  away  to  educate 
the  public.    That  makes  a  total  of  2,999." 

The  diners  laughed  a  good  deal  over  my 
speech.  A  "jolly"  was  evidently  the  kind  of 
thing  they  wanted,  and  when  I  went  out  of  the 
hall,  Bill  met  me  outside  in  the  corridor  and 
shook  my  hand,  saying:  "Your  speech  was 
all  right,  Howard;  you  certainly  made  good 
with  the  fellows." 

All  at  once  he  looked  down  and  saw  my 
shoes. 

"Say,"  he  said  in  his  usual  blunt  way, 
"you  didn't  change  your  shoes  to-night; 
you've  got  your  working  shoes  on." 

I  was  caught  unawares. 

"Why,  Bill,"  I  said,  "those  are  the  only 
shoes  I  own." 

He  looked  at  me  a  minute.  Then  he  put 
his  hand  in  his  pocket  and  brought  out  a  lot 
of  bills. 

[122] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

"Here,"  he  said,  "I  want  to  subscribe  to 
your  paper  for  a  year.  Make  it  two  years!" 
he  added  impulsively,  handing  me  a  five- 
and  a  one-dollar  bill. 

"I  want  to  see  you  to-morrow  evening  in 
Allen's  office,"  he  said  finally. 

The  next  day  at  ten  o'clock  I  was  in  Ed 
Allen's  office. 

"Tell  him  what  we  were  talking  about, 
Ed,"  said  Sanborn,  after  a  pause. 

Then  they  told  me  that  they  wanted  to 
help  me  as  much  as  they  could  afford  to  — 
that  there  were  a  lot  of  people  in  Salem  who 
admired  the  newspaper  for  its  work.  San- 
born  suggested  that  I  form  a  company, 
and  perhaps  I  could  sell  a  little  stock  in 
it.  They  would  pay  for  the  incorporation, 
and  each  of  them  would  buy  twenty-five 
dollars'  worth  of  stock  themselves.  Then 
they  each  laid  down  twenty-five  dollars.  I 
[123] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

went  up  to  Boston  and  got  my  legal  friend, 
Mr.  Peabody,  to  incorporate  the  Salem  Dis- 
patch Company.  Soon  after  that  we  began 
bringing  out  a  larger  paper.  We  still  pub- 
lished only  four  pages,  but  we  increased  the 
sheet's  size  until  it  was  a  little  less  like  a 
hand-bill. 

What  made  the  paper  possible  was  its  inde- 
pendent comments  on  local  affairs.  The 
News,  which  had  had  a  monopoly  of  the  daily 
fields  in  the  past,  had  been  very  free  with  its 
comments  in  early  days,  when  it  was  strug- 
gling for  existence.  Its  editor  had  even  left 
for  Europe  following  a  libel  suit,  in  those 
days  of  its  beginning.  But  now  it  was  so 
situated  that  free  comment  on  the  various 
gangs  in  control  of  the  city  were  not  in  its 
programs.  Some  of  the  leading  politicians 
were  its  own  stockholders.  This  situation 
gave  me  my  opportunity,  and  I  opened 
[124] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

up    political    affairs    with    enthusiastic   free- 
dom. 

I  was  constantly  calling  on  the  merchants, 
trying  to  interest  them  to  advertise.  They 
told  me  if  the  newspaper  had  come  to  stay 
and  if  I  would  remain  in  Salem  they  would 
advertise,  but  as  both  points  were  doubtful 
in  their  minds,  they  must  refuse  to  do  so  at 
present.  There  was  one  man,  however,  who 
brought  in  an  advertisement  of  hah*  a  page 
for  a  month,  paying  me  thirty  dollars  cash 
in  advance.  The  third  day  after  his  adver- 
tisement appeared  he  called  to  tell  me  that 
Colonel  Peterson  had  a  mortgage  on  his 
building  and  had  threatened  to  foreclose 
unless  the  advertisement  was  taken  out  of 
the  Dispatch.  The  merchant  was  very  fair 
about  it  and  said  he  would  take  twenty- 
seven  dollars'  worth  of  stock  in  the  Dispatch 
Company,  but  his  advertisement  must  be 
[125] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

removed.  I  can't  say  that  this  transaction 
left  me  feeling  especially  agreeable  toward  the 
Colonel,  and  I  was  not  long  in  giving  him  a 
couple  of  jolts  in  the  paper.  When  I  went 
into  the  post-office,  two  days  later,  Colonel 
Peterson  was  coming  out.  "Link"  Allen  was 
with  me.  He  stopped  the  Colonel  and  said : 

"Colonel,  shake  hands  with  our  new  editor, 
Mr.  Howard." 

"I  never  shake  hands  with  a  stinker,"  said 
the  Colonel,  striding  by  and  going  out  into 
the  street. 

The  next  morning  my  editorial  said :  "  Yes- 
terday, Colonel  Peterson  refused  to  shake 
hands  with  Mr.  Howard,  saying  'he  never 
shook  hands  with  a  strinker.'  This  puts 
Colonel  Peterson  in  a  peculiar  position,  be- 
cause if  he  never  shakes  hands  with  a  stinker, 
it  would  be  impossible  for  him  to  shake  hands 
with  himself." 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

Some  one  sent  in  an  article  about  a  former 
liquor  dealer  in  Salem.  It  was  an  illustra- 
tion of  the  methods  in  vogue  of  securing 
licenses,  evidently  written  by  some  one  very 
sore  with  the  liquor  dealer.  I  began  to 
publish  it  in  three  instalments.  The  first 
day  that  it  came  out  it  created  quite  a  great 
deal  of  excitement,  and  inside  of  two  hours  I 
received  a  letter  warning  me  that  if  the  second 
instalment  appeared  the  next  day,  and  I 
should  appear  on  Town  House  Square,  at 
eleven  o'clock,  I  would  be  hi  the  hospital  that 
night. 

I  failed  to  see  anything  that  was  detrimen- 
tal to  the  man's  character  in  the  articles. 
They  merely  dealt  with  the  methods  of  the 
various  license  commissioners,  so  I  published 
them. 

Ten  minutes  before  eleven  I  came  into 
Town  House  Square  and  stood  there  until 
[127] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

twelve  o'clock.  My  man  came  shortly  after 
eleven  and  glared  at  me  and  then  continued 
down  the  street. 

Joe  Tassinari,  who  then  had  charge  of  our 
circulation,  heard  that  they  were  going  to 
wait  until  night  to  assault  me;  and  so  con- 
vinced was  he  that  some  harm  was  going  to 
come  to  me  that  he  walked  home  with  me  the 
night  we  printed  the  second  instalment.  On 
the  day  we  brought  out  the  third  instalment 
the  circulation  jumped  eight  hundred. 

I  did  not  hear  from  "my  man"  all  day  long. 
Not  only  did  Joe  walk  home  with  me  that 
night,  but  Bill  and  Ed  also.  When  I  got  to 
my  boarding-house  I  waved  good-night  to 
them,  letting  myself  in  with  a  latchkey. 
After  I  closed  the  door  I  saw  that  the  parlour 
was  lit  up.  I  stepped  in,  and  as  I  did  so 
some  one  brushed  past  me  and  closed  the  door. 
Standing  towering  above  me  was  a  very  large 
[128] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

man,  his  face  flushed  with  anger  and  his  fist 
doubled  up.  I  knew  I  was  trapped  and  must 
act  quickly.  The  only  thing  I  could  do  was  to 
put  on  my  best  smile  and  remark  pleasantly, 
"Good  evening." 

He  brought  his  fist  down  with  a  whack, 
knocking  my  hand  away,  and  his  ring  cut  a 
gash  in  my  hand,  drawing  the  blood.  I  held 
up  my  hand  and  said  quietly,  "First  blood 
for  you. " 

That  nonplussed  him  for  a  moment  and  his 
hands  dropped  by  his  side. 

"I  am  glad  you  came  in,"  I  said,  "as  I 
wanted  to  ask  you  who  it  was  that  sent  this 
story  to  me." 

He  hesitated,  then  awkwardly  sat  down  in 
the  easy  chair. 

I  talked  cheerfully  about  my  troubles  and 
various  other  things  for  an  hour.  As  he 
listened  he  got  in  good  humour.  Shortly  after 
[129] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

that  I  had  him  laughing;  and  when  he  left, 
after  talking  with  me  two  hours,  I  saw  him 
out  to  the  door.  As  his  burly  figure  disap- 
peared in  the  darkness  I  called  after  him: 

"If  you're  afraid  to  go  home  alone,  say  the 
word  and  I'll  go  with  you  to  protect  you. " 

He  laughed  and  roared  back,  "You're  all 
right,  Howard.  I  thought  you  were  a  fool, 
but  you're  not. " 


[150] 


CHAPTER  X 

THE  political  situation  in  Salem  at  that 
time  was  a  wonderful  and  ugly  thing. 
There  were  no  party  lines  in  local 
elections;  the  votes  were  largely  divided  into 
the  personal  following  of  different  individuals. 
The  best  known  figure  was  the  bluff  old 
swearing  "Colonel"  Joe  Peterson  —  the   ex- 
mayor,  the  man  who  handled  the  money  of  the 
State  Republican  machine  in  Essex  County, 
and  the  contractor  to  whom  the  political  jobs 
in  the  county  were  thrown. 

Then  there  were  the  McSweeney  brothers, 
who  built  their  fortunes  on  the  liquor  question. 
Their  law  firm  represented  the  liquor  dealers, 
while  they  personally  were  prominent  in  the 
total  abstinence  societies.  One  brother  was  a 
[131] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

license  commissioner,  one  an  alderman,  and 
the  third  a  man-of -all-work  for  the  other  two, 
being  the  only  one  of  the  three  not  a  lawyer. 

A  third  leader  was  John  F.  Hurley,  a  politi- 
cal insurgent  and  the  greatest  "glad  hand" 
politician  in  the  world,  who  had  graduated  into 
the  mayoralty  from  a  long  and  profitable 
career  in  his  chosen  profession. 

And  last,  but  most  active  of  all,  was  Doyle, 
the  theatre  ticket  agent,  the  director  of  the 
Board  of  Aldermen.  From  this  position  he 
gained  the  voting  strength  which  comes  to  the 
man  who  controls  the  employment  of  city 
labourers. 

As  he  was  most  active  in  directing  the  affairs 
of  the  city  at  the  time,  it  was  he  whom  I  hit 
first. 

The  most  ridiculous  and  extravagant  per- 
version of  the  city  government's  work  in  re- 
cent years  had  been  in  the  building  of  a  new 
[132] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

high  school.  Instead  of  being  located  some- 
where near  the  centre  of  the  city,  it  was  placed 
in  an  open  pasture  at  the  extreme  southwest 
end  of  the  town,  a  mile  and  two  miles  from  the 
houses  of  a  large  number  of  the  pupils.  In  a 
city  of  no  greater  area  than  Salem  the  loca- 
tion was  preposterous.  The  property  was 
sold  to  the  city  by  a  real  estate  company 
whose  treasurer  and  active  spirit  was  the 
chief  banker  of  Salem  and  the  head  of  the 
Electric  Light  Company,  whose  rates  for  light 
were  far  from  favourable  to  the  city. 

My  comments  on  local  affairs  began  with 
the  treatment  of  this  school  situation,  fol- 
lowed by  a  criticism  of  the  Electric  Light 
Company  and  the  part  of  Doyle  as  leader  of 
the  aldermen  in  these  matters. 

I  had  started  direct  attacks  against  the 
politicians  early  in  January.  In  the  last  of 
that  month  I  treated  the  schoolhouse  location 
[133] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

and  the  electric  light  rates  in  an  editorial, 
"The  Magsman. "  which  I  began  like  this. 

We  are  going  to  tell  you  what  a  magsman  is. 
A  magsman  is  a  swindler  of  country  folk. 
Would  you  call  this  city  the  country? 


Would  you  call  a  man  a  magsman  that  held  public 
office,  if  he  voted  (as  your  representative)  to  build  a 
public  building  that  could  be  harmful  to  your  children? 

Think  it  over. 


Wonderful  thing,  electricity! 
Do  you  use  it? 
Can  you  afford  it? 

We  think  it  is  very  expensive  in  Salem,  don't  you? 
It  is  for  the  people  to  say,  and  you  are  the  people. 
Can  not  we  get  together  on  this?    Suppose  a  mass- 
meeting  was  held. 
When  shall  it  be? 
Don't  forget  the  word  magsman. 


Who  represents  you  in  the  city  government? 

Does  he  vote  for  the  public  good? 

Do  you  know  whether  he  ever  benefited  personally? 

Did  you  want  the  high  school  where  it  is? 

Did  you  know  five  people  that  did? 

[134] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

I  used  various  devices  like  this  to  catch  the 
attention  of  the  public,  but  there  was  general 
interest  in  disclosures  concerning  the  manage- 
ment of  city  affairs.  Another  matter  I  took 
up  after  the  schoolhouse  and  electric  light 
rates  was  the  waste  of  money  in  buying  a 
melancholy  plot  of  land  by  the  city  for  a 
breathing  space  which  we  call  "Bunco  Park." 

It  was  my  purpose,  so  far  as  possible,  to 
attack  the  political  system,  and  not  individu- 
als; but  more  and  more  events  drew  me  into 
comments  on  individuals.  The  most  effective 
treatment  of  my  theme  I  found  to  be  a  rather 
flippant  burlesque. 

This  proved  very  successful,  more  especially 
when  directed  against  my  brusque  competitor 
and  the  solemn  congregation  of  sidewalk  poli- 
ticians who  ran  the  city  from  Town  House 
Square. 

The  day  after  "The  Magsman"  editorial 
[135] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

appeared  I  had  occasion  to  go  to  Boston. 
A  banker,  whom  I  had  accused  of  being 
mixed  up  with  the  high  school  and  electric 
light  deal  came  breathlessly  through  the  train 
and  sat  down  beside  me. 

"This  is  Mr.  Howard,  I  believe,"  he  said. 

"Yes,  "I  replied. 

"I  have  been  much  interested  in  your  little 
paper,"  he  observed. 

"It  is  pretty  small,"  I  answered. 

"While  I  have  no  idea  of  getting  into  a 
controversy  with  a  newspaper,  knowing  that 
they  always  have  the  last  word,"  he  said, 
"  at  the  same  time  I  want  to  tell  you  that  you 
are  entirely  mistaken  in  regard  to  the  electric 
lighting  contract  —  I  had  nothing  to  do  with  it 
at  all.  It  was  planned  by  the  city,  and  we 
merely  came  to  their  terms." 

"There  is  no  occasion,"  I  said,  "for  you  to 
apologize  to  me.  The  people  to  whom  you 
[136] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

should  apologize  are  the  citizens  of  Salem  or 
those  in  control." 

"I  am  not  apologizing,"  he  interrupted. 
"I  am  merely  stating  facts  to  you  in  order 
that  you  may  make  a  correction,  but  I  think 
that  you  have  been  misled  by  some  one  who  is 
annoyed  with  me. " 

"You  are  probably  referring  to  some  article 
that  appeared  in  my  newspaper,"  I  said. 
"While  I  am  responsible,  as  editor,  for  every 
word  that  appears  there,  still  the  boys  do  get 
a  little  gay  once  in  a  while  and  have  their  fun, 
and  it  is  too  bad  if  they  have  had  it  at  your 
expense. " 

The  banker  smiled  grimly. 

"I  guess  you  are  the  editor,  the  boys,  the 
printer,  and  the  pressman,"  he  said. 

"You  are  better  informed  about  my  busi- 
ness than  I  am  about  yours, "  I  answered. 

"What  I  want  to  correct  are  those  two 
[137] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

statements  in  your  paper  in  which  you  say 
that  the  high-school  property  was  landed  on  to 
the  city  of  Salem  for  twice  its  value,  and  again 
where  you  say  that  the  contract  with  the  city 
of  Salem  for  lighting  the  streets  was  made  at 
double  the  proper  cost. " 

"I  should  be  very  pleased,"  I  replied,  "to 
give  you  the  first  page  of  my  paper  to-morrow 
morning  and  you  can  write  such  denial  and 
sign  your  name  to  it. " 

"I  don't  care  to  get  into  a  controversy  with 
the  newspaper,"  he  interrupted;  "I  only 
wanted  to  explain  it. " 

"Well,  why  don't  you  explain  it  to  those  in 
authority?  I  am  not  in  control  now,"  I  said, 
"though  I  may  be  next  year." 

He  looked  up  with  a  start.  "What  do  you 
mean  by  that?"  he  asked. 

"Why,  I  am  going  to  run  for  mayor,"  I 
replied. 

[138] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

"Now,  I  know  you're  crazy,"  said  the 
banker,  taking  up  his  paper  and  commencing 
to  read. 

But  after  we  got  to  Lynn  he  started  in  to 
tell  me  all  over  again  about  the  electric  light- 
ing contract,  and  before  I  got  to  Boston,  I 
must  confess,  I  believed  that  I  had  made  a 
mistake  in  my  articles.  We  parted  pleas- 
antly. When  I  got  back  to  Salem  the  man  at 
the  news  stand  in  the  depot  called  me.  "Do 
you  want  to  hear  a  funny  story?"  he  asked. 

"Yes,  "I  replied. 

"Well,"  he  said,  "one  of  our  most  prom- 
inent bankers  ran  this  morning  for  the  first 
time  in  his  life  trying  to  catch  you. " 

"What  do  you  mean?"  I  asked 

"Why,"  he  replied,  "when  you  got  on  the 

train  he  came  rushing  into  the  depot  and  said 

*  wasn't  that  Howard  that  just  stepped  on  that 

train?'     I  said  'yes/  and  he  ran  and  jumped 

[139] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

on  after  you.  Perhaps,"  said  the  newsboy, 
"he  is  going  to  loan  you  a  lot  of  money. 
Anyway,  it  is  the  first  time  that  I  ever  saw 
him  run." 

"Hmm!"  I  thought,  as  I  walked  up  from  the 
depot  to  my  office.  "  No  wonder  he  bluffs  the 
people  —  he  almost  bluffed  me. " 

Just  to  feel  my  way  toward  the  mayoralty, 
I  came  out  the  next  day  with  the  following 
editorial: 

WHAT  IS  THE  MATTER  WITH  SALEM 

We  have  heard  the  question  asked  and  debated  as  to 
"what  is  the  matter  with  Salem?"  All  answers  seem 
to  be  that  the  people  are  filled  with  lethargy  or  "  asleep 
at  the  switch."  Those  who  say  this  are  the  so-called 
leaders  here  or  principal  officeholders  in  the  city.  We 
have  been  watching  things  closely  the  last  four 
weeks  and  we  disagree  with  any  one  that  says  the  people 
are  asleep.  There  are  no  more  enterprising  or  wide- 
awake people  in  the  country  than  our  people;  they 
have  proved  this  by  the  way  they  have  purchased  the 
Dispatch  the  last  ten  days.  As  soon  as  we  gave  them 
[140] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

a  decent  looking  sheet,  the  poor  as  well  as  the  rich 
have  bought  all  the  copies  we  could  print. 

The  only  detriment  to  this  city  is  the  city  officials 
and  corporations.  The  Board  of  Aldermen  has  only 
two  members  who  are  high-spirited  citizens.  The 
majority  of  the  Council  are  so  busy  wondering  what 
the  other  half  is  going  to  do  that  they  let  the  real  busi- 
ness slide.  Jealousy  and  bickering  are  their  principal 
thoughts  and  actions.  They  will  talk  one  hour  about 
supervision  of  rules,  and  another  knocking  the  Fire 
Department;  but  will  only  half  listen  to  a  request  to 
help  a  business  enterprise.  They  should  not  stop  busi- 
ness enterprises,  but  help  them  along. 

Any  member  of  the  Board  of  Aldermen  who  holds 
electric  light  stock  should  resign;  if  not  from  the  Board 
at  least  from  the  co  mmittee  where  he  has  a  vote. 

The  Electric  Light  Company  is  a  serious  detriment 
to  the  city;  they  let  personal  matters  interfere  with  the 
progress  of  affairs.  The  Dispatch  is  only  too  well 
convinced  of  this.  For  three  days  we  tried  to  find  out 
whether  we  would  have  electric  power  or  no.  If  the 
City  Electrician  had  spent  half  the  time  in  telling  us 
what  was  the  trouble,  instead  of  telephoning  and  run- 
ning to  "KISS  THE  ELECTRIC  COMPANY  GOOD 
MORNING,"  another  enterprise  would  be  running 
smoothly  now.  The  Electric  Light  Company  are 

[M1J 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

entitled  only  to  fair  play;  there  is  absolutely  no  reason 
why  they  should  ask  favours  of  any  one;  they  should 
get  their  rights  without  manipulation;  and  they  will. 
All  this  rot  of  having  an  alderman  to  represent  a  cor- 
poration looks  badly.  We  must  clean  all  these  tool 
heads  out.  Let  the  people  be  represented  by  REAL 
MF/N  who  get  up  and  say  what  they  know,  and  how 
they  know  it.  Of  the  Mayor  and  City  Marshal  we 
cannot  really  express  our  opinion;  but  we  do  not  think 
they  represent  the  people.  Next  year  our  Mayor  is 
going  to  be  a  "DISTURBER."  He  is  going  to  be  a 
"NIGHT  HAWK,"  and  he  sits  here  just  crazy  to  get 
to  work.  He  lives  in  Salem,  but  he  will  come  from 
"Missouri." 

No  alderman  can  whisper  in  his  ear;  they  have  got 
to  speak  out  before  every  one  "LOUD  and  CLEAR." 

There  are  not  going  to  be  any  "STEAM  DRILLS," 
"STEAMROLLERS,"  "PAVING  DEALS,"  "LAND 
DEALS";  there  will  be  no  HIGH  SCHOOLS  built  in 
God-forsaken  spots,  or  land  landed  on  this  city. 
From  Ward  1  to  6  there  is  going  to  be  a  housecleaning. 
The  man  that  sells  liquor  one  minute  after  hours,  or 
without  a  license,  is  going  to  stop  if  the  Mayor  has  to 
prefer  charges  against  the  Chief  of  Police  and  every 
man  on  the  force  seven  days  a  week  and  365  times  in 
a  year. 

[142] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

It  is  a  public  disgrace  that  Salem  people  are  not 
represented  as  they  should  be.  There  are  at  present 
only  five  real  men  in  city  affairs;  the  rest  are  either  the 
deadest  kind  of  woodenheads  or  so  tangled  up  with 
grafters  that  even  their  trousers  are  mortgaged  to 
political  bosses. 

There  is  absolutely  nothing  the  matter  with  Salem 
or  its  people,  but  the  principal  corporations  and  office- 
holders are  the  LIMIT  —  they  are  selfish,  contempti- 
ble and  lacking  in  brains.  Reform  with  a  big  "R"  will 
sweep  this  town  from  end  to  end. 

There  will  be  a  mayor  who  will  not  hold  up  every 
bill  that  smells  of  graft,  but  will  watch  those  $44,000 
street  lights  like  a  cat  to  see  that  they  do  their 
duty,  and  he  will  make  every  individual  (be  he  a 
lawyer  with  a  pull,  or  a  city  official)  keep  the  sidewalks 
clean. 

The  liquor  people  will  be  kept  straight,  but  given 
fair  play.  The  police  will  have  to  do  their  duty;  and 
every  word  spoken  in  the  City  Hall  meetings  will  be 
published  in  the  Dispatch. 

The  people  MUST  and  WILL  rule  in  Salem. 
"PULL"  must  end.  "GRAFT"  must  cease. 

And  we  predict  that  after  Feb.  1,  1910,  the  question 
will  never  be  asked  again: 

"What  is  the  matter  with  Salem?" 
[143] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

I  didn't  know  exactly  how  the  readers  of 
my  paper  would  take  my  flirtation  with  the 
mayoralty,  but  I  had  what  they  call  a 
"hunch"  that  the  people  of  Salem  would  like 
to  run  their  own  affairs.  Later  events  seemed 
to  show  I  was  right. 


[144] 


CHAPTER  XI 

A  SOON  as  it  became  known  around 
that  I  was  going  to  run  for  mayor, 
Bill  and  Ed  and  George  Day  decided 
that  it  would  be  a  good  idea  if  we  went  over 
Sunday  to  Bill's  camp  in  the  country  and  had 
some  of  the  young  men  around  town  down 
there  to  discuss  the  situation.  We  left  Salem 
late  Saturday  afternoon  and  Lee  went  with  us. 
When  we  got  up  to  the  camp  I  was  intro- 
duced to  about  a  dozen  young  business  men, 
and  we  sat  down  and  commenced  to  discuss 
the  methods  that  would  be  used.  I  cannot 
remember  at  this  time  exactly  what  they  said, 
but  I  recall  the  conducting  of  the  campaign 
was  left  entirely  to  me,  and  I  merely  agreed 
to  inform  them  as  to  what  plan  I  intended  to 
[145] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

cany  out.  In  discussing  city  affairs  in  gen- 
eral, I  explained  to  them  that  an  examination 
showed  that  it  was  a  very  difficult  proposition. 
In  Ward  1  we  had  almost  entirely  Polish  and 
the  working  class  of  people  who  knew  no 
reason  why  they  should  be  deprived  of  their 
beer  if  they  wished  it.  In  Ward  2  we  had  the 
residential,  quiet  class  to  be  appealed  to,  peo- 
ple who  closely  observed  the  liquor  laws.  In 
Ward  3  the  aristocrats  resided,  whereas  Ward 
4  was  almost  entirely  the  Irish  district,  and 
Hurley  and  Alderman  Doyle  and  the  Mc- 
Sweeneys  were  Irish,  and  it  would  be  natural 
to  surmise  that  this  district  was  to  be  divided 
up  among  the  three  of  them,  and  yet  in  my 
visits  up  there  I  had  made  some  very  good 
friends  and  had  some  firm  supporters  among 
them.  Ward  5  was  a  very  difficult  ward  to 
penetrate  because  it  included  twelve  thousand 
French  people.  Ward  6  were  all  very  closely 
[146] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

affiliated  together,  and  were  almost  sure  to 
support  only  people  from  their  own  ward. 
My  idea  of  conducting  the  campaign  was  to 
do  it  mostly  through  my  newspaper  for  the 
next  four  or  five  months,  sailing  into  any 
candidate  that  came  up  for  office,  and  stating 
what  I  would  do  if  elected.  My  idea  about  the 
French  people  was  to  leave  them  entirely  alone 
until  the  last  couple  of  days  before  election, 
and  then  to  make  a  whirlwind  tour  through 
the  French  clubs  and  try  to  catch  them  by 
spectacular  methods.  Meantime,  I  was  to 
make  perhaps  one  or  two  speeches  a  week 
anywhere  I  was  invited,  throwing  every  day 
bombshells  into  the  political  crowds. 

Early  in  April  I  wrote  an  ironical  editorial 
on  "  How  to  Make  Money  in  Salem, "  holding 
that  the  best  way  was  to  start  a  newspaper. 
A  day  or  two  afterward  I  made  this  amend- 
ment to  it: 

[147] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

We  wrote  the  other  day  saying  that  the  way  to 
get  rich  was  to  run  a  newspaper  in  Salem.  While 
we  were  right,  a  better  and  surer  way  is  to  take 
tickets  at  "the  door  of  a  theatre.  You  can  buy  real 
estate,  and  accumulate  five  thousand  dollars  in 
electric  light  stock,  and  all  on  eighteen  dollars  a 
week. 

As  soon  as  Alderman  Doyle  read  it,  he 
said: 

"Howard  ought  to  be  shot." 

When  I  heard  this  verdict  I  went  down 
to  the  office  and  got  out  a  paper  with 
a  huge  headline  on  the  front  page  so  that 
it  was  the  very  first  thing  to  strike  the 
eye. 

CAN  A  CROOKED  ALDERMAN  SHOOT 
STRAIGHT? 

A  member  of  the  Board  of  Aldermen  said  yesterday 
that  the  editor  of  the  Dispatch  should  be  shot. 

As  our  editor  weighs  only  one  hundred  thirteen 
pounds,  it  will  take  a  pretty  good  marksman  to  hit 

[148] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

him;  and  even  then  a  man  as  thin  as  that  might  cut  the 
bullet  in  two. 

Personally,  we  agree  with  the  alderman;  but  the 
idea  is  not  new.  We  thought  years  ago  that  we  ought 
to  be  shot. 

But  who  shall  do  it?  Surely  a  crooked  alderman  can 
not  shoot  straight.  And  we  insist  on  a  good  job. 
After  all,  it  would  eliminate  the  question  of  earning 
money  to  live,  and  we  dislike  work. 

We  will  be  generous.  If  the  alderman  proves  to  us 
he  never  took  graft,  we  will  give  him  this  paper  and 
shoot  ourselves. 

One  after  another,  as  issues  came  up,  I 
devoted  my  editorial  to  him.  The  idea  took 
and  my  circulation  increased  in  a  month  to 
three  or  four  hundred  copies.  And,  in  the 
meanwhile,  I  disclosed  my  ambition  of  run- 
ning for  mayor  to  all  of  the  friends  of  Sanborn 
and  Ed  Allen.  Surprising  as  it  may  seem, 
they  took  it.  Considering  the  class  of  men 
who  had  recently  held  the  office,  it  was  not  so 
preposterous,  after  all.  I  had  had  experience, 
[149] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

the  education  of  large  affairs  and  of  wide 
travel  in  Europe  and  America.  And  I  had 
a  newspaper  through  which  I  could  appeal 
directly  to  the  people.  Both  Sanborn  and 
Allen  started  with  characteristic  energy  to 
back  my  campaign. 

It  was  spring,  and  the  election  was  not  until 
the  following  December;  but,  contrary  to  all 
precedent,  I  began  to  feel  out  public  senti- 
ment. On  April  10th  I  came  out  with  an 
editorial  in  which  I  said  that  the  citizens  of 
Salem  wanted  a  change. 

OUR  NEXT  MAYOR  -  A  PREDICTION 

The  next  mayor  must  be  a  fearless  man  who  can 
take  the  helm  without  fear  or  favour  and  without  giv- 
ing a  promise  to  any  one;  and  in  order  to  be  elected  he 
must  have  a  newspaper  behind  him.  There  are  only 
three  men  who  can  do  that  here: 

Mr.  Robin  Damon,  of  the  News. 

Hon.  J.  D.  A.  Gauss,  of  the  Observer  [a  weekly 
paperj. 

[150] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

And  one  other. 

Mr.  Damon  has  not  proved  his  fitness  for  the  posi- 
tion. He  is  not  a  man  who  can  go  out  and  campaign 
for  mayor  until  election,  speaking  night  and  day,  for 
he  is  neither  an  orator  nor  a  good  writer.  His  popu- 
larity is  in  doubt.  He  had  the  opportunity  to  expose 
the  graft  in  Salem,  but  he  let  it  slide. 

It  looks  as  if  a  candidate  were  available,  and  we 
believe  that  one  we  have  in  mind  will  be  elected  (just 
to  see  what  he  would  do) ;  and  we  hope  his  manhood  will 
assert  itself  to  such  an  extent  that  people  will  ever 
after  say:  "The  year  that  newspaper  fellow  was  in 
no  one  dared  graft;  our  streets  were  clean,  and  the 
liquor  laws  obeyed." 

The  next  day  I  announced  myself  a  candi- 
date for  mayor.  My  paper's  circulation  was 
now  fifteen  hundred. 

The  politicians  took  this  at  first  rather  as 
a  huge  joke  —  very  naturally.  I  could  not 
even  register  as  a  citizen  of  Massachusetts  for 
three  months  to  come.  But  I  kept  hammer- 
ing them  day  after  day,  in  one  matter  or 
[151] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

another,  until  they  lost  their  amusement  in  a 
confused  anger. 

Day  after  day  I  had  been  working,  not  to 
trap  individuals,  but  to  unearth  the  methods 
of  the  system  as  a  whole.  There  was  one  big 
job  in  particular  which  I  wanted  to  learn  about, 
but  always  it  eluded  me.  There  was  a  go- 
between  in  it,  but  I  could  never  put  my  hand 
on  him.  Finally  I  was  told  that  the  man  I 
wanted  was  a  fellow  named  Ned  Bates.* 

Almost  immediately  upon  my  announce- 
ment that  I  was  a  candidate  for  mayor,  the 
candidacy  was  announced  of  Robert  Pollock, 
an  ex-license  commissioner,  who  was  supposed 
to  have  the  French  votes  in  his  pocket.  He 
ran  a  barber  shop,  and  was  very  popular, 
but  was  unable  to  make  a  speech.  He  was 
strongly  affiliated  with  the  Republican  party 
and  was  one  of  the  members  of  the  Legis- 

*  This  name  is  fictitious. 

[152] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

lature  from  Salem.  The  following  week  one 
of  the  McSweeney  brothers  —  William  — 
came  out  and  announced  that  he  was  a  candi- 
date for  mayor,  appealing  to  the  young  Irish 
voters  for  support. 

Next  came  John  F.  Hurley,  the  present 
mayor,  announcing  that  he  would  be  a  candi- 
date, claiming  that  he  was  a  "good  fellow" 
and  would  take  care  of  all  parties.  The  News 
leaned  toward  the  McSweeneys.  Meantime, 
a  Good  Government  Association  was  formed. 
This  association  was  made  up  of  aristocrats 
and  business  men  with  an  idea  of  purifying 
Salem  politically,  and  one  of  their  candi- 
dates for  office  was  Alderman  Adams,  who 
had  displayed  some  independence  in  the 
Board,  but  somehow  or  other  they  did 
not  seem  to  think  that  he  wanted  to  be  a 
candidate  for  mayor,  so  they  put  him  up 
again  for  membership  in  the  Board  of  Alder> 
[153] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

men,  selecting  a  Mr.  Goodhue  as  candidate 
for  mayor. 

One  night  I  went  into  a  restaurant,  and  over 
in  one  corner  I  saw  Bates.  I  went  over  to  his 
table  and  sat  down  opposite  him.  He  was 
drunk  and  very  talkative.  After  he  had 
finished  his  meal,  he  walked  over  to  my  office 
with  me  and  sat  down.  Suddenly  he  began  to 
tell  me  about  the  deal,  and  as  he  told  me 
I  wrote  down  what  he  said.  When  he  got 
through  I  read  him  what  I  had  written. 

"That's  the  story,"  he  said,  "complete; 
and  I  hope  you  send  them  both  to  jail. " 

"Would  you  sign  it?" 

"Sure  I  would,"  he  said,  and  picked  up  a 
pen  and  wrote  his  name  at  the  bottom. 

When  he  left  I  wrote  an  editorial  which  I 
called  the  "Crookedest  Crook  in  Crook- 
haven.  " 

My  campaign  was  warming  up  political 
[154] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

circles  in  Salem.  The  sad  congregation  of 
politicians  on  Town  House  Square  was  stirred 
every  day  to  its  core;  and  I  could  hear  the 
terrible  Colonel  begin  to  rumble  two  blocks 
away  whenever  I  went  down  the  main  street. 
Anonymous  letters  appeared  in  which  my 
early  destruction  was  freely  predicted;  and 
my  partner,  Lee,  moved  uneasily  and  gave  out 
unexpected  warnings  as  we  sat  about  the  office 
stove. 

Somewhere  about  the  first  of  May  I  went 
home  to  my  boarding-house  one  early  morning 
after  the  paper  had  gone  to  press.  I  sat  at  my 
window,  with  the  curtain  up,  and  began  to 
write  my  first  public  speech  in  my  campaign 
for  mayor.  It  was  about  two  o'clock  in  the 
morning.  Suddenly  there  was  a  crash  beside 
me,  and  I  felt  the  house  shake.  Looking  out 
in  the  moonlight,  I  saw  on  the  ground  a  stone 
about  twice  the  size  of  my  hand,  and  reaching 

[  155  ] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

out  of  the  window  I  located  the  dent  where  it 
had  struck  the  side  of  the  house. 

It  had  missed  the  glass  by  about  three 
inches.  There  was  nobody  to  be  seen,  and  I 
went  back  and  lay  down  on  the  bed,  wondering 
what  I  ought  to  do. 

About  twenty  minutes  later  some  one  whis- 
tled outside  my  window.  I  raised  it  again, 
and  there  stood  Lee. 

"Is  that  you,  Howard?"  he  said.  "Say, 
can  I  see  you  a  minute?" 

I  went  down  and  let  him  in,  and  he  told  me 
that  two  or  three  men  had  been  down  at  the 
Dispatch  office  pounding  on  the  door  and 
threatening  to  "lick"  the  editor.  Then  they 
had  thrown  stones  at  the  building,  one  of 
which  had  broken  a  window. 

Finally  he  asked  me  if  I  had  fifty  cents,  and 
after  I  had  given  it  to  him  he  hung  around  for 
half  an  hour,  saying  nothing  in  particular. 
[156] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

Just  before  he  left  he  got  up  and  shook  hands 
with  me,  wishing  me  all  kinds  of  luck. 

I  didn't  understand  it  at  the  time;  but  the 
next  morning,  when  I  stopped  at  the  post- 
office,  I  got  the  following  letter: 

Dear  Howard: 

Perhaps  you  can  stand  it,  but  I  can't.  Good  luck 
to  you. 


That  was  the  end  of  my  first  partner. 

Three  weeks  later  I  received  a  brief  letter 
from  him  saying  that  he  had  enlisted  in  the 
United  States  Army.  I  couldn't  blame  Lee 
for  his  conduct,  but  I  received  his  second  letter 
with  regret.  It  has  profoundly  shaken  my 
confidence  in  the  standing  army  of  the  United 
States. 

My  printer  had  gone,  and  I  regretted  him. 
We  had  been  through  hard  times  together. 
But  I  had  in  the  meantime  found  another  close 
[157] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

business  associate.  I  had  made  connections 
with  Johnny,  the  official  Dispatch  newsboy. 

Early  in  the  year,  while  I  was  still  acting  as 
my  own  newsboy,  we  were  visited  one  day  by  a 
very  small  boy  enveloped  in  a  very  long, 
dingy  overcoat.  His  name,  he  said,  was 
Johnny  Alwyn. 

He  said  that  he  had  seen  the  Dispatch  and 
would  like  to  take  a  chance  selling  it.  I  told 
him  we  sold  it  to  newsboys  two  for  a  cent; 
whereupon  he  laid  down  a  penny  and  invested 
in  two  on  the  spot. 

He  had  been  gone  about  ten  minutes,  when 
he  returned  and  laid  down  one  of  the  two 
copies. 

"I  don't  think  I  care  to  sell  them  any 
more,"  he  remarked. 

"Very  well,"  I  said;  "we  will  give  you  your 
penny  back,  and  we  are  very  glad  to  have  met 


you." 


[158 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

"I'm  satisfied,"  he  said,  "but  I'm  through 
with  your  paper.  It  isn't  any  good  and  I  don't 
think  I  can  sell  it. " 

He  had  an  intelligent  face  and  an  odd  gift  of 
language.  I  took  a  fancy  to  him;  so  the  next 
day,  when  I  ran  across  him  on  the  street,  I 
asked  him  to  come  down  to  the  office. 

"What  for?  "he  asked. 

"I  want  to  put  through  a  business  deal  with 
you,"  I  said. 

"I  guess  I'll  put  through  a  business  deal, 
maybe,"  said  Johnny,  somewhat  suspiciously, 
"but  I  don't  want  to  handle  your  paper;  it's 
no  good." 

However,  I  finally  induced  Johnny  to  allow 
me  to  make  daily  consignments  of  papers  to 
him,  so  that  he  could  handle  them  without 
financial  risk,  and  in  a  short  time  he  was  the 
most  ardent  associate  in  our  enterprise.  He 
was  about  the  size  of  a  grasshopper,  and  the 
[159] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

way  he  would  march  up  to  the  Town  House 
Square  politicians  and  try  and  sell  the  papers 
attacking  them  was  a  thing  grotesque  to  see. 

"Here  you  are,  Colonel,"  he  would  say, 
shaking  the  Dispatch  in  front  of  the  warlike 
leader  of  the  street-pavers.  "Here  you  are 
—  Dispatch.  All  about  you !" 

The  Colonel  would  let  out  a  roar  that  almost 
lifted  him  off  his  feet: 

"Go  home,  you  brat!  You  ought  to  be 
licked  within  an  inch  of  your  life. " 

In  a  short  time  Johnny  had  reached  the 
opinion  that  the  Dispatch  was  the  greatest  of 
human  institutions,  and  recognized  that  he 
was  an  essential  part  of  it.  He  insisted  upon 
seeing  and  talking  with  the  editor  personally. 
It  became  his  opinion  that  if  I  would  publish 
something  besides  politics  he  could  sell  a  great 
number  of  copies,  and  when  I  asked  him  to 
name  a  topic  of  general  interest,  he  suggested 
[160] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

that  I  write  about  the  newsboys.  That  night 
there  was  a  circus  in  town,  and  Johnny  at- 
tended it  as  my  guest.  The  next  issue  I 
devoted  to  a  description  of  our  business 
alliance  with  Johnny,  and  our  experience  at  the 
circus,  under  the  caption: 

THE  CIRCUS  COMES  TO  TOWN 

The  show  was  just  what  would  please  an  editor  and 
a  newsboy.  There  were  bareback  riders,  and  a  con- 
tortionist, clowns,  wire-walkers,  trapeze  actors,  ponies, 
and  everything  that  makes  the  eyes  dilate  and  the 
pulse  beat.  The  contortionist  was  great,  and  two  of 
the  clowns  were  very  funny.  One  tried  to  carry  the 
other  out  of  the  ring,  and  his  efforts  made  Johnny  laugh 
until  he  swallowed  a  peanut  whole.  Johnny  found  two 
friends  after  the  show,  and  we  all  had  "hot  dogs" 
together.  We  like  Johnny,  and  his  observations  and 
appreciation  of  the  circus  are  worth  recording. 
Johnny  is  not  only  a  good  business  man,  but  an  agree- 
able companion;  and,  judging  by  the  way  he  digested 
the  peanuts,  candy,  and  "hot  dogs,"  we  should  say  his 
stomach  was  made  of  iron. 

[161] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

As  soon  as  Johnny  read  this  tribute,  he 
insisted  on  taking  all  the  papers,  and  set  off  at 
once  for  his  station  in  Town  House  Square, 
yelling  in  his  shrill  voice:  "Salem  Dispatch. 
All  about  me!"  He  sold  the  entire  edition, 
and  not  only  established  his  reputation,  but 
ours  at  the  same  time. 

Our  circulation  was  increasing  daily  through 
those  spring  months  of  1909.  But  we  were 
still  having  our  troubles.  Some  time  after  we 
formed  The  Salem  Dispatch  Company  we 
enlarged  the  size  of  our  page,  and  gave  the 
work  of  printing  to  a  local  job  printer.  We 
hoped  to  get  advertising  in  this  way,  but  we 
didn't  get  any  to  speak  of.  We  were  making 
no  money;  in  fact,  we  were  running  behind. 
And  finally  the  Salem  printer  told  me  he  could 
not  go  on  any  longer,  and  I  had  to  make 
arrangements  with  a  man  in  Lynn,  six  miles 
away,  to  print  the  Dispatch.  He  took  over 
[1621 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

my  type  and  started  printing.  He  had  been 
at  this  only  a  short  time  when  I  got  a  telegram 
stating  that  his  plant  had  been  destroyed  by 
fire.  All  the  type  I  owned  went  with  it,  and 
neither  one  of  us  had  a  dollar's  worth  of  in- 
surance. Again  it  looked  as  if  the  Dispatch 
had  reached  its  end.  When  I  came  back  from 
Lynn  that  night  I  didn't  see  how  I  could 
possibly  go  on. 

As  I  sat  in  my  office,  wondering  what  I 
would  do,  I  saw  a  letter  on  my  desk  from  a 
local  dealer  to  whom  I  owed  twenty-five  dol- 
lars. I  had  no  desire  to  open  it  at  that  time, 
but  finally  I  tore  it  open  and  found  the  fol- 
lowing enclosed: 

Dear  Mr.  Howard: 

I  have  just  heard  that  you  have  been  burned  out, 
and  appreciate  fully  the  difficult  position  you  must 
be  in.  You  owe  me  twenty-five  dollars,  and  I  enclose 
a  check  for  twenty-five  dollars  more.  Please  send  me 
fifty  dollars'  worth  of  stock  in  your  company. 

163] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

The  twenty-five  dollars  that  he  gave  me 
went  into  type  the  next  morning,  and  I  started 
to  set  up  the  paper  myself.  My  typesetting 
was  a  strange  and  wonderful  piece  of  work; 
but  I  finally  got  it  done,  and  arranged  with  a 
Salem  job  printer  to  run  it  off  for  me.  When 
he  had  run  off  about  a  hundred  copies  he  was 
called  to  the  telephone.  As  if  by  intuition  I 
went  over  to  the  nearest  font  of  type  and 
changed  the  date  of  the  paper  one  day  for- 
ward. I  felt  that  somebody  was  going  to  tell 
him  not  to  print  for  us.  When  he  came  back 
he  said:  "Something  has  happened  to  my 
press;  I  can't  print  any  more  papers  for  you. " 

"  Well,  run  fifty  more  for  me, "  I  answered, 
"and  I  will  be  satisfied." 

So  he  ran  off  fifty  more,  and  I  got  out  my 
paper  for  two  days  more.  I  learned  after- 
ward that  Damon  of  the  News  was  on  the 
other  end  of  the  wire. 

[164] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

I  was  constantly  in  receipt  of  encouraging 
and  friendly  letters,  most  of  them  from  work- 
ingmen  who  were  coming  to  recognize  me  as 
on  their  side  of  the  fence.  One  of  the  letters 
made  such  an  impression  on  me  that  I  give  it 
below: 

AN  APPRECIATION 

To  the  Editor  of  the  Dispatch: 

The  undersigned  can  no  longer  refrain  from  writing 
to  tell  you  how  welcome  to  his  ears  is  the  now  prev- 
alent newsboy's  cry  of  the  Morning  Dispatch,  for  it 
heralds  the  arrival  of  relief  of  a  long  stricken  city. 

Could  a  greater  malediction  befall  a  city  than  a 
monopoly  of  its  press  —  the  only  instrument  for  the 
rapid  and  concrete  dissemination  among  the  people  of 
the  doings  of  its  public  servants  and  the  intelligence  of 
the  day? 

We  are  hearing  a  great  deal  nowadays  about  monop- 
olies at  one  time  or  another,  but  can  you  conceive  a 
more  despicable  monopoly  than  that  of  the  press  in  a 
given  community?  Pause,  if  only  for  a  moment,  and 
contemplate  just  what  such  a  monopoly  means  I  If  it 
means  anything,  it  means  that  it  is  within  the  power  of 

[165] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

one  man,  the  owner  of  the  controlling  interest  in  the 
paper,  to  present  in  its  true  or  perverted  form  or  even 
withhold  altogether  such  information  as  he  may  see 
fit.  What  a  monarchial  power  that  is  to  allow  to 
repose  in  the  hands  of  a  single  individual  in  a  presum- 
ably democratic  city!  Could  a  more  contemptible 
state  of  affairs  exist  even  in  darkest  Russia  with  its 
censors  of  the  press?  And  yet,  until  just  before  the 
last  city  election,  when  the  publication  of  the  Morn- 
ing Dispatch  was  begun,  Salem  had  for  a  long  time  been 
subject  to  just  such  a  malediction. 

With  your  advent  into  the  local  field  of  journalism 
reports  of  important  happenings  in  city  affairs  will  not, 
the  writer  firmly  believes,  be  studiously  perverted  for 
base  political  reasons,  if  not  entirely  suppressed,  or 
given  minor  attention  in  the  press,  while  matters  of 
practically  no  importance  are  laid  before  the  people  in 
glaring  headlines;  the  Mayor  and  members  of  the  City 
Council  will  no  longer  allow  themselves  to  be  intimi- 
dated and  coerced  in  their  actions  or  feel  constrained  to 
see  that  the  press  representatives  fill  so  many  positions 
on  boards  and  commissions  of  the  city  through  fear  of 
being  misrepresented  to  their  constituents  by  the  press; 
and  rumours  of  graft,  petty,  or  otherwise,  will  not  be 
so  prevalent. 

The  citizens  of  Salem  owe  you  a  great  deal  more 
[166] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

than  they  realize  at  this  time  for  the  courageous  in- 
stallation of  your  newspaper  in  this  community,  and 
the  writer  firmly  believes  that,  as  your  paper  becomes 
better  known,  you  will  receive  the  cordial  support  of 
all  good  citizens. 

Yours  truly, 

HEMAN  CURTIS. 

Mr.  Curtis  was  a  brother  of  the  man  to 
whom  I  gave  the  absent  treatment  to  get 
something  to  eat.  I  replied  to  his  letter  and 
asked  him  to  call  and  see  me.  After  several 
conferences  he  elected  to  become  a  member  of 
the  staff  of  the  Dispatch  without  pay. 

And  now  it  was  necessary  to  start  a  new 
plant,  so  I  sent  for  all  my  friends  to  hold  a 
conference  and  to  raise  money. 

Curtis  put  in  one  hundred  dollars.  San- 
born  and  Ed  Allen  each  put  in  fifty  dollars 
more,  and  several  other  people  contributed 
small  amounts.  By  a  part  payment  I  got  a 
good  little  press  in  Boston,  valued  at  six  hun- 
U671 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

dred  dollars,  and  secured  a  young  man,  who 
had  been  in  the  Lynn  plant  which  burned 
out,  to  be  typesetter  and  pressman.  And  so 
the  Dispatch  started  on  its  way  again. 

I  had  not  ceased  from  the  first  to  pay  my 
respects  to  my  competitor,  the  "Little  Octo- 
pus," who  published  the  opposition  sheet. 
And  he,  as  well  as  the  politicians,  did  not  bear 
my  enterprise  any  good  will.  Early  in  the 
spring  I  had  expected  to  secure  the  printing  of 
the  advertisements  of  the  liquor  license  appli- 
cations for  the  city,  because  the  News,  in  a 
spectacular  excess  of  virtue,  had  made  it  a 
policy  never  to  take  even  so  much  of  a  liquor 
advertisement  as  this.  When  I  was  just 
about  to  print  the  names  the  News  suddenly 
repented,  reversed  its  established  policy,  and 
took  the  advertising.  I  commented  on  the 
hypocrisy  of  its  action,  and  one  after  another, 
as  I  took  up  the  instances  of  political  mis- 
[108] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

management,  I  called  attention  to  the  fact 
that  the  News  had  not  seen  fit  to  tell  the  pub- 
lic of  them. 

Finally,  on  Memorial  Day,  I  made  a  flank 
movement  by  taking  away  from  the  control  of 
the  News  the  old  newspaper  I  had  originally 
tried  to  buy  from  them  —  the  Gazette  —  and 
publishing  it  as  an  evening  paper. 

The  thing  was  done  very  simply. 

In  the  seven  months  I  had  been  in  Salem 
the  old  Gazette  had  not  been  published.  The 
publisher  of  the  News  had  let  it  die.  I  wrote 
to  the  authorities  in  Washington,  stating  the 
facts,  and  asking  if  there  was  anything  to 
prevent  my  publishing  a  Gazette.  They  re- 
plied that  there  was  not,  and  I  came  out  with 
both  a  morning  and  evening  paper. 

I  celebrated  this  event  with  a  flippant  edi- 
torial which  did  not  tend  to  allay  the  irritation 
caused  by  my  move.  I  had  two  newspapers 
[169] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

now  in  which  to  pay  my  respects  to  the  politi- 
cal gangs  and  the  News.  And  in  the  mean- 
time I  was  pounding  them  on  all  occasions  in 
the  speech-making  campaign  I  was  begin- 
ning to  make  as  a  candidate  for  mayor. 
Two  thirds  of  the  daily  newspapers  in 
Salem,  I  announced,  favoured  Howard  for 
mayor. 

I  soon  began  to  find  that  my  opponents 
were  far  from  inactive.  They  had  sent  de- 
tectives to  look  up  my  whole  career  in  New 
York.  The  News  never  mentioned  my  name, 
as  a  matter  of  policy;  but  Salem  was  flooded 
with  scandals  about  me. 

In  May  I  had  an  unpleasant  experience.  I 
kept  in  the  bottom  drawer  of  my  bureau,  at 
the  boarding-house,  three  or  four  hundred 
letters  from  my  people  in  New  York.  They 
were  my  one  pleasant  link  with  my  old  life, 
and  often  on  Sunday  afternoons  I  used  to  take 
[170] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

them  out  and  read  them.  One  Sunday  after- 
noon in  May  I  opened  the  drawer  and  found 
that  the  letters  were  gone.  I  went  down- 
stairs and  asked  "Ma"  about  them;  where- 
upon she  burst  into  tears  and  said  she  knew 
nothing  about  them.  I  went  upstairs,  threw 
most  of  my  few  belongings  into  a  bag,  and  left 
the  house.  I  had  then  and  have  still  no  doubt 
that  the  letters  in  some  way  got  into  the  hands 
of  my  enemies. 

After  that  I  began  to  find  that  my  letters 
ad  been  opened  when  they  reached  me  from 
the  post-office.  There  was  every  sign  that  I 
was  being  watched  on  every  side. 

I  hit  back  as  hard  blows  as  I  knew  how.  I 
had  worked  out  now  a  regular  formula  for  the 
Dispatch.  The  features  were  a  local  story  on 
the  front  page,  with  a  mastodonic  headline, 
often  a  single  word  which  covered  half  the 
page;  an  editorial  directed  against  local 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

affairs;  and  a  rhymed  parody.  As  my  cam- 
paign for  mayor  advanced,  my  attacks  on  the 
badly  managed  city  government  and  the 
political  machine  became  more  and  more 
direct  and  pointed. 


[172] 


CHAPTER  XII 

I    HAD    two  interesting   callers  the  next 
day,  one  of  whom  was  a  representative 
of  the  telephone  company. 
"Good  morning;"  he  said,  "I  am  from  the 
telephone  company  with  whom  you  signed  a 
contract  a  few  days  ago  and  our  managers 
told  me  to  call  and  ask  if  you  could  give  us 
any  'recommends'  in  Salem. " 

"  'Recommends'  for  what?"  I  asked. 
"Well,  we  never  heard  of  you  before,"  he 
said,  "  and  we  usually  require  '  recommends.'  : 
"Do  you  think  I  am  dishonest?"  I  asked. 
"Certainly  not,"  he  laughed,  "in  fact,  we 
know  absolutely  nothing  about  you. " 

"That  is  more  than  I  can  say  of  your  com- 
pany," I  rejoined.     "I  have  heard  several 
[1731 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

things  detrimental  to  your  monopoly,  such  as 
excess  charges,  your  service,  etc. " 

"Yes,"  he  broke  in,  "but  it  is  a  question 
of  money  with  us.  We  want  to  be  sure 
your  bill  is  paid;  so  we  either  want  a  recom- 
mend or  a  deposit  of  six  dollars  and  fifty 
cents." 

"Is  the  telephone  company  hard  up?"  I 
asked.  :<  What  is  your  capital?  " 

"Our  capital,"  said  my  caller,  "is  up  in  the 
millions. " 

"All  water?  "I  asked. 

"No,  sir!"  he  replied,  "bona  fide  assets." 

"Then  why  the  deuce  do  you  want  money 
from  me  when  you  can  see  by  surroundings 
that  I  am  hard  up?  Whom  do  I  deposit  the 
money  with?"  I  asked. 

"Why,"  he  replied,  "with  us." 

"And  pray,"  I  asked,  "what  do  you  de- 
posit?" 

[174] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

"Nothing,  of  course;"  he  said,  "we  put  in 
the  box  and  service. " 

"Look  here,  my  friend,"  I  said,  "I  have 
friends,  but  they  are  people  whose  friendship 
I  value.  A  man  is  judged  by  the  company  he 
keeps.  If  I  deposit  real  money  with  you  I 
keep  you  company,  don't  I?  All  my  friends 
have  a  pretty  bad  opinion  of  the  telephone 
company.  You  propose  to  take  my  six  dollars 
and  fifty  cents  and  in  return  I  get  a  wooden 
box,  some  wire  with  a  sassy  girl  on  the  other 
end.  You  put  up  six  dollars  and  fifty  cents 
with  some  bank  and  I'll  do  the  same  so  long 
as  we  don't  trust  each  other. " 

His  face  flushed  angrily  and  he  said:  "I 
have  never  had  any  one  talk  so  since  I  have 
been  connected  with  the  company. " 

"Because  I  am  the  only  person  that  ever 
told  you  people  the  truth,"  I  replied  as  he 
went  out. 

[175] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

I  published  the  interview  in  my  paper  the 
next  day,  and  one  hour  after  it  came  out  the 
telephone  was  installed. 

My  next  caller  was  the  gray-haired,  all- 
tobacco  cigarette  smoker  that  told  me  about 
Bill  my  first  day  in  Salem.  His  name  was 
Ben  Reed.  He  stood  during  his  call  and 
talked  in  his  former  jerky  style. 

"I'm  glad  your  paper  is  getting  along  all 
right.  You  have  my  best  wishes.  Your 
knocks  on  the  News  and  its  owner  are  the  stuff 
we  want.  Damon  never  cared  for  any  one  and 
nobody  loves  him  so  far  as  I  can  find  out. 
When  your  paper  gets  a  little  better  head- 
way the  News  will  look  like  thirty  pennies. 
Damon  looks  proud  and  haughty  going 
through  the  streets  in  his  automobile  with 
the  bulldog  on  the  seat  with  him,  but 
at  heart  he  is  a  squealer,  and  when  you 
get  him  in  a  corner  he'll  squeal  or  run 
[176] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

away;  and    when   he  runs,  he  runs   a  long 
way. 

"His  paper  lives  on  high-priced  advertise- 
ments, with  about  one  local  story  a  day. 
The  rest  is  done  by  some  one  with  the  scis- 
sors, probably  himself,  for  he  can  cut  out 
news  and  print  it  better  than  he  can  write  it. 
Cutting  news  from  other  papers  ought  to  be 
as  easy  for  you  as  for  him. 

"His  editorials  are  forever  starting  out, 
'Our  esteemed  contemporary  says'  so  and 
so,  and  then  he  goes  on  giving  us  the  same  old 
bunch  of  guff  about  capital  punishment  and 
bringing  flowers  to  condemned  criminals  that 
we  have  been  getting  for  years;  but  never  a 
word  about  Salem  and  its  own  problems.  The 
News  has  the  cheapest  paid  and  probably  the 
weakest  staff  of  writers  of  any  paper  in  New 
England,  and  I  hope  you  put  the  plant  out  of 
business. 

[177] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

"The  cracks  on  the  Electric  Light  and 
Colonel  Joe  are  all  right  too.  Don't  feel 
badly  because,  as  he  says,  he  would  not  shake 
hands  with  a  'Stinker.'  He  would  and  has 
shaken  hands  with  worse  things,  and  if  hands 
could  speak  Joe  would  have  to  wear  mittens 
all  the  tune  to  muffle  the  sound  from  his. 

"It  won't  do  any  harm  to  continue  to  give 
his  chum,  Misty  Mike,  a  few  side  ones.  He  is 
posing  as  a  theatrical  manager  and  loafing 
around  all  day  in  City  Hall  and  fumbling 
around  the  cubby  holes  in  the  Street  Depart- 
ment's roll-top  desk.  What  Mike  doesn't 
know  about  the  theatrical  business  would 
stuff  a  good  many  ballot  boxes. 

"That  gang  in  the  City  Hall  needs  a  harder 
cracking  than  you  are  giving  them.  There 
seems  to  be  a  race  between  several  of  them  to 
see  who  can  fill  the  cuspidor  the  first  with 
tobacco  juice.  The  clerk  in  the  Water  Board 
[178] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

office  doesn't  know  whether  he's  coming  or 
going  with  the  noise  they  make,  and  yet  the 
City  Marshal  comes  in  every  day  with  his 
gold  badge  and  cut-rate  clothes,  and  instead  of 
stopping  the  proceedings  starts  right  in  with 
them  by  cutting  off  a  piece  of  tobacco  and 
then  the  fun  begins.  The  Chief  of  Police 
would  make  a  good  constable  for  Bingville. 
That's  where  he  came  from  and  that's  where 
he'll  finally  land,  buttons,  bill  and  breast  pro- 
tector, as  Bill  McSweeney  would  say  to  His 
Honour  at  the  City  Court. 

"I  agree  with  you  that  Alderman  Billy  is  a 
misfit.  He  really  thinks  that  he  cuts  ice,  but 
he  only  jabs  at  it  with  the  ice  pick,  and  his 
work  is  a  bungle.  Well,  the  supply  of  gaso- 
line that  keeps  his  engine  of  bum  oratory 
going  will  shut  off  next  December.  It's  been 
hard  to  endure  him.  He  sounds  like  a  new 
automobile  on  the  road.  As  I  listen  to  him  hi 
[179] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

City  Hall  and  other  places,  he  reminds  me  of  a 
bad  imitator  of  national  characters  in  a 
vaudeville  show.  Billy  as  a  City  Father  is 
like  a  tall  hat  on  most  mayors  and  under- 
takers. It's  the  right  hat  on  the  wrong  block. 

"  I  think  you  called  most  of  the  City  Coun- 
cil 'Noodles.'  I  don't  know  what  'Noodles' 
are,  but  I  know  a  bunch  of  fakirs  when  I  see 
them,  and  it  seems  to  me  as  though  a  very  good 
proportion  of  the  city  government  consisted 
of  just  such  a  bunch. " 

Ben  Reed  was  famous  for  his  unique  philoso- 
phy, and  I  have  given  his  remarks  in  full  as 
I  recall  them,  in  order  to  show  the  opinion  of 
one  who  had  lived  in  Salem  all  his  life  and  of 
the  condition  of  affairs  there.  After  that  he 
came  in  frequently,  and  many  of  his  quaint 
observations  have  found  their  way  into  the 
columns  of  the  Dispatch  from  time  to  time. 

[180] 


CHAPTER  XIII 

ON   SATURDAY  morning,    July  10, 
1909,  I  was  returning  to  Salem  from 
Boston,  where  I  had   been  to  buy 
some  type.     As  I  alighted  from  the  train,  a 
little  before  ten  o'clock,  a  policeman  stepped 
up  to  me  and  said: 

"I've  got  a  warrant  for  your  arrest." 
"What  for?  "I  asked. 
"  Criminal  libel, "  he  answered. 
"Have  you  the  warrant  with  you?"  I  asked 
him. 

"No,"  he  answered;  "but  if  you  will  come 
over  to  the  court  I  will  show  it  to  you.  If  you 
will  give  me  your  word  that  you  will  meet  me 
there,"  he  continued,  "I  will  spare  you  the 
odium  of  arrest. " 

[1811 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

So  I  promised,  went  to  the  office  and  got  the 
paper  out,  and  then  went,  with  my  associate, 
Curtis,  to  the  courthouse.  I  was  called  to  the 
bar,  and  arraigned  on  the  charge  of  criminal 
libel,  preferred  by  Alderman  Doyle.  I  asked 
to  see  the  complaint,  and  the  clerk  responded 
that  it  had  been  locked  up  over  Sunday.  The 
whole  thing  seemed  strange  to  me,  and  I  rose 
and  said  to  the  judge :  "  Your  Honour,  how  can 
I  plead  if  I  don't  know  what  is  in  the  com- 
plaint?" 

The  judge  ordered  it  to  be  brought  out.  It 
was  about  an  article  I  had  published  on  Doyle 
the  week  before.  Instead  of  being  made  by 
Doyle  himself,  the  complaint  was  made  by 
James  B.  Skinner,  the  assistant  marshal  of  the 
city.  The  two  best-known  lawyers  in  Salem, 
Joseph  F.  Quinn  and  Michael  L.  Sullivan, 
appeared  for  Doyle.  Sullivan  was  the  attor- 
ney for  the  big  liquor  and  corporation  interests 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

and  the  legal  adviser  of  Editor  Damon  of  the 
News.  My  case  was  set  for  Friday  morning, 
six  days  later;  and  when  this  was  done  the 
attorneys  for  the  prosecution  insisted  that 
my  bail  be  placed  at  twenty-five  hundred 
dollars. 

I  was  without  counsel  myself;  but  I  stepped 
forward  and  said  that  that  bail  was  unreason- 
able and  entirely  out  of  my  reach.  It  hap- 
pened that  on  that  very  morning  an  Italian, 
who  was  defended  by  one  of  the  attorneys  for 
the  prosecution,  had  been  held  for  an  assault 
to  kill  under  only  one  thousand  dollar  bonds. 
I  called  the  judge's  attention,  to  the  fact  that 
it  was  ridiculous  to  hold  me  on  twenty-five 
hundred  dollars  bonds  when  this  man  had  been 
released  on  one  thousand  dollars.  At  that 
rate,  I  pointed  out,  I  could  afford  to  try  and 
kill  two  men  and  a  boy  for  the  same  bail  rate 
as  one  was  charged  for  writing  an  editorial 
[183] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

on  political  conditions.  The  judge  set  my 
bail  at  one  thousand  dollars  and  gave  me 
until  Monday  morning  to  procure  it. 

As  soon  as  I  left  court  I  rushed  to  Boston  to 
see  Mr.  Peabody,  but  found  him  out  of  the  city 
on  a  long  vacation.  Curtis,  my  new  associate, 
who  was  with  me,  suggested  that  I  call  upon  a 
minister,  formerly  of  Salem,  who  had  made 
serious  charges  against  the  political  gangs  in 
Salem.  When  I  saw  him  he  advised  me  to 
secure  the  best  counsel  in  Boston.  I  went 
from  him  to  see  Louis  D.  Brandeis. 

When  I  met  Mr.  Brandeis  I  frankly  told 
him  my  history,  -both  in  New  York  and  Salem, 
my  disastrous  experience  in  money  matters  in 
the  past,  and  my  present  lack  of  funds.  After 
hearing  my  story  he  said  he  would  take  my 
case,  notwithstanding  my  financial  condi- 
tion. "You  need  not  worry  about  that,"  he 
said. 

[184] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

His  unqualified  advice  to  me  was  practi- 
cally: "Go  to  jail."  If  I  had  the  sand  to  do 
this,  he  said,  the  result,  in  all  probability, 
would  be  worse  for  my  persecutors  than  for 
myself. 


[185] 


CHAPTER  XIV 

I  WENT  back  to  Salem,  and  brought  out 
in  the  Dispatch  on  Monday  morning  an 
editorial  entitled,  "On  the  Way."      It 
ran  like  this: 

Good-bye,  boys. 

Heard  the  news? 

Our  editor  has  been  arrested. 

Complaint  was  made  by  M.  J.  Doyle,  alderman  of 
the  city  of  Salem.  The  complaint  is  libel. 

Messrs.  Quinn  and  Sullivan  are  the  attorneys  for 
Mr.  Doyle.  They  are  our  two  best  and  most  expen- 
sive lawyers.  Now,  Mr.  Doyle  told  Alderman  Cahill 
several  times  that  he  would  not  spend  one  cent  to 
get  after  Howard.  Some  one  else  must  have  put  up 
the  money.  Who?  "Colonel"  Peterson,  Damon,  or 
Mayor  Hurley?  We  doubt  very  much  if  Mr.  Doyle 
would  put  up  a  cenU 

The  complaint  says  that  Howard  deprived  Doyle  of 
his  good  name,  fame,  and  reputation.  Try  as  hard  as 

[186] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

he  could,  Mr.  Howard  could  not  help  smiling  as  he 
stood  there  in  court  listening  to  this  complaint. 

"What  a  beautiful  world  this  is!  How  beautiful  the 
flowers  are!  How  brilliantly  the  sun  shines!  And 
how  nice  to  walk  abroad  and  breathe  the  fresh  air! 
And  to  think  that  on  Monday  we  must  bid  good-bye 
to  all,  and  go  down  to  jail! 

We  pounded  out  from  eight  to  nine  thou- 
sand copies  of  the  Dispatch,  and  they  were  on 
the  street  at  5  A.  M.,  selling  like  hot  cakes. 
I  had  three  boys  stationed  outside  of  Editor 
Damon's  house  and  yelling  at  the  top  of  their 
voices : 

"All  about  Doyle!" 

At  nine  o'clock  I  appeared  in  the  police 
court  alone.  I  had  decided  not  to  have  any 
lawyer  in  these  preliminary  proceedings. 

"Are  you  prepared,  Mr.  Howard,"  said  the 
judge,  "to  give  a  bond  of  $1,000?" 

"No,  Your  Honour,"  I  said;  "and  I  don't 
know  where  I  could  get  it. " 
[187] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

Lawyer  Sullivan  sprang  to  his  feet  and  said : 

"This  man  has  a  wealthy  father  in  New 
York  who  could  readily  supply  the  bond. " 

"Mr.  Sullivan  is  more  familiar  with  my 
family,"  I  said,  "than  I  am  with  his." 

"I  will  let  you  go  on  your  own  recognizance 
again  until  to-morrow  morning,"  said  the 
judge;  "and  I  would  advise  you  to  communi- 
cate with  your  father. " 

I  had  no  intention  of  bringing  my  father 
into  the  matter.  He  was  sailing  for  Europe, 
I  happened  to  know,  the  next  morning  at  ten 
o'clock.  He  was  an  old  man,  feeble,  and  in 
need  of  rest,  and  I  did  not  intend  to  worry  him 
with  this  affair  of  mine.  He  would  have  come 
to  my  aid,  I  knew.  He  had  been  following 
my  efforts  to  reestablish  myself  for  several 
months,  and  I  knew  he  had  been  pleased. 
But  I  proposed  to  go  alone.  Besides,  I  had  no 
[188] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 
fear  for  the  final  outcome  of  my  case  —  I 
knew  where  I  stood;  and  I  served  notice  of 
that  fact  in  an  editorial  in  the  next  morning's 
Dispatch  which  I  called 

AS  OUR  CONSCIENCE  DIRECTS 

We  want  to  say  for  the  benefit  of  all  grafters  and 
politicians,  and  the  public  in  general,  that  nothing  has 
ever  been  said  in  the  Dispatch  that  did  not  have  our 
most  careful  consideration.  The  editorials  and  articles 
have  each  and  every  one  been  based  upon  what  we  be- 
lieve, and  after  careful  investigation  have  felt  posi- 
tively certain,  to  be  solid  facts.  And  we  would  like  to 
impress  upon  all  the  fact  that  we  have  no  personal 
spite  against  any  individual.  It  is  the  system  which  is 
in  vogue  in  this  city  that  we  are  against. 

On  Tuesday  morning  I  went  before  the 
court  again,  and  asked  the  judge  to  hold  me 
for  appearance  before  the  court  on  Friday 
under  my  own  recognizance.  I  did  not  own 
one  thousand  dollars'  worth  of  property,  I 
told  him,  and  I  did  not  believe,  while  carrying 
[189] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

out  a  public  work  in  my  newspaper,  that  I 
ought  to  put  myself  under  an  obligation  to 
any  one.  I  was  only  accused  of  a  misde- 
meanour; I  had  already  shown  that  I  would 
not  run  away;  and,  if  he  chose,  he  could  very 
properly  hold  me  in  this  way. 

The  judge  seemed  quite  upset  when  he 
heard  that  I  had  not  secured  bail,  and  asked: 

"Haven't  you  communicated  with  your 
father,  Mr.  Howard?" 

"Oh!"  I  said,  jumping  to  my  feet,  as  if  I 
had  forgotten  all  about  it.  "Yes,  Your  Honour. 
I  have  communicated  with  my  father  and  I 
have  got  some  good  news.  My  father  sailed 
for  Europe  this  morning.  It  has  been  several 
years  since  he  has  been  away,  and  the  vacation 
can't  help  doing  him  good." 

The  judge  looked  very  much  surprised. 
The  lawyers  for  the  prosecution  whispered 
together  and  consulted  with  the  judge;  and 
1180] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

finally  the  judge  said  that  he  would  let  me  go 
until  two  o  'clock  so  I  could  raise  my  bail  in 
Salem. 

All  I  had  to  do,  I  felt  sure,  was  to  leave 
town  during  one  of  these  respites  that  were 
given  me,  and  the  whole  thing  would  be 
ended.  What  my  enemies  wanted  was  to  get 
me  out  of  Salem. 

Early  in  the  afternoon  I  came  into  court 
again,  and  told  the  judge  I  did  not  want  to 
get  any  Salem  people  on  my  bonds.  I  would 
rather  go  to  jail  than  do  this. 

"And,  by  the  way,"  I  said,  "Alderman 
Doyle  is  the  man  who  is  sending  me  to  jail, 
and  he  doesn't  seem  to  be  in  court  this  morn- 
ing. In  fact,  he  hasn't  been  in  court  any 
day." 

The  lawyers  began  an  elaborate  explan- 
ation of  Doyle's  absence;  and  finally  the  judge 
cleared  the  court  and  called  the  assistant 
[191] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

marshal  —  the  man  who  had  been  complain- 
ant for  Doyle  in  the  matter  —  to  take  me  to 
jail. ' 

The  assistant  marshal  came  over  to  me  and 
said:  "You  are  foolish,  Howard,  not  to  let 
some  of  these  people  go  your  bail.  There  are 
three  or  four  people  in  this  room  who  would  do 
it;  I  have  heard  them  say  so." 

Then  I  got  up  and  cried  at  the  top  of  my 
voice: 

"  I  think  it  is  a  perfect  outrage,  when  a  man 
is  perfectly  willing  to  go  to  jail,  that  every  one 
should  try  to  stop  him. " 

The  assistant  marshal  began  to  pound  on 
the  desk,  and  called  on  one  of  the  inspectors 
to  take  me.  So  we  started  in  a  leisurely 
manner  for  jail. 

I  bought  some  magazines,  and  went  into  a 
restaurant  with  the  inspector  and  had  lunch; 
then  we  strolled  toward  the  jail.  As  we  went 
[192] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

along  we  passed  the  liquor-dealer  mayor,  with 
his  resplendent  silk  hat  perched  over  one  ear 
and  his  silky  side-whiskers,  walking  home  to 
luncheon.  He  smiled  with  the  utmost  genial- 
ity, waved  his  hand  affably,  and  passed  on. 

Curtis  dropped  into  the  post-office  and 
brought  me  a  farewell  letter  from  my  father; 
and  finally  we  arrived  at  the  jail.  I  smoked  a 
farewell  cigar  in  the  sheriff's  room,  and  in  the 
middle  of  the  afternoon  I  found  myself  an 
inmate  of  cell  45. 

I  had  been  there  only  a  short  time  when  the 
cell-keeper  came  down  and  told  me  there  was 
a  little  boy  who  wanted  to  see  me.  I  was 
allowed  to  step  into  an  anteroom;  and  there 
was  Johnny,  my  newsboy.  He  bore  with  him 
a  box  of  ice  cream,  as  an  expression  of  his  per- 
sonal feeling,  and  he  assured  me  that  he  would 
be  outside  in  case  I  needed  him.  So  I  showed 
him  where  my  cell  was,  and  he  said  he  would 
[193] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

be  across  the  street,  and  take  a  look  at  me 
occasionally.  Finally  the  cell-keeper  came  in 
and  put  him  out  —  much  against  his  will. 

My  arrest  was  a  local  sensation,  of  course, 
and  as  soon  as  I  reached  jail  I  told  Curtis  to 
print  the  following  notice  in  the  centre  of  a 
blank  editorial  column  of  the  evening  paper 
—  the  Gazette: 

Editor  Howard  is  in  jail.    As  soon  as  the  authori- 
ties give  him  paper  and  pencil,  he  will  send  us  an 
ditorial. 

The  next  morning,  Wednesday,  I  printed  as 
my  first  page  leader  a  jocose  statement  of  my 
situation,  headed: 

IN  JAIL  — A  FEW  PERT  REMARKS  BY 
NO.  45 

I  am  the  guest  of  Mr.  Essex  County,  board  free.  I 
am  afraid  I  am  too  much  of  a  gentleman  to  find  fault 
with  my  host,  but  I  do  think  Mr.  Essex  County  should 
employ  more  servants. 

[194] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

My  bed  is  the  worst  made  I  ever  saw,  and  all  be- 
cause I  make  it  myself.  If  Mr.  Essex  County  wanted 
a  newspaper  edited  I  might  be  able  to  accommodate 
him,  but  when  it  comes  to  making  beds,  I  am  afraid 
that  kind  of  business  is  not  in  my  line.  I  also  dislike 
this  early  bell  at  5 :45  A.  M.  It  annoys  me.  Why  do 
they  call  me  early,  when  I  am  on  a  vacation? 

Speaking  of  beds,  my  mattress  and  pillow  feel  as  if 
they  were  stuffed  with  knotted  rope. 

It  seems  that  the  rooms  here  are  called  cells.  There 
are  no  bellboys  —  no  electric  bells  to  summon  a  ser- 
vant. And  I  am  no  longer  Editor  Howard:  I  am 
just  45. 

My  trunk  has  not  arrived.  Stupid  express  com- 
pany. 

Think  of  sleeping  without  pajamas  for  the  first 
time  in  twenty  years.  Awful  nuisance! 

Last  night  the  moon  had  a  golden  ring, 

To-night  no  moon  I  see. 
And  the  Editor  sadly  lay  on  his  cot; 

"It's  beastly  slow,"  said  he. 

In  my  editorial  I  explained  my  position. 

Many  people  expected  that  if  our  editor  was  put  in 
jail  there  would  come  such  an  outburst  of  wrath  and 

[195] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

indignation  from  him  as  never  appeared  before  in 
print. 

But  Mr.  Howard  does  not  get  excited.  Mr.  Howard 
has  no  desire  to  pose  as  a  martyr  or  a  hero;  he  just  has 
his  convictions  and  sticks  to  them. 

Now  that  we  are  here  in  cell  No.  45,  it  is  time  to  be 
calm,  cool,  and  collective.  It  is  not  the  time  to  rush 
wildly  into  print,  and  try  the  case  in  our  own  paper. 
Now  is  the  time  when  one's  nerves  must  be  of  steel; 
there  must  be  no  wavering.  The  truth  will  prevail, 
and  the  man  that  dares  to  do  right  will  win. 

What's  the  use  of  getting  excited  over  it  all?  Just 
wait  and  see. 

What's  the  use  of  getting  busy,  when  there's  not  much 

you  can  do? 
What's  the  use  of  rushing  wildly,  when  rest  is  best  for 

you? 
What's  the  use  of  being  a  Damon,  and  running  far 

away? 
Why  not  be  a  chap  like  Howard?    If  you're  in  the 

game  —  just  stay? 
What's  the  use  of  having  a  paper  if  it  isn't  known  at 

all? 
What's   the   use   of   waiting   for   excitement?    Isn't 

summer  as  good  as  fall? 
[196] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

What's  the  good  of  having  jails,  if  there's  none  to  put 

in  there? 
What's  the  use  of  running  for  council  —  why  not  run 

for  mayor? 

Curtis  was  in  charge  at  the  Dispatch  office, 
pushing  out  all  the  newspapers  he  could  print. 
There  was  no  doubt  the  public  was  with  us. 
In  the  meantime  I  was  getting  interesting 
information  in  the  jail.  Knowing  that  I  was 
in  for  attacking  the  political  gang  the  other 
prisoners  told  me  tales  of  them.  Curiously 
enough,  the  man  in  the  next  cell  to  me  was  a 
fellow  who  bewailed  the  fact  that  he  was  in 
confinement  for  illegal  liquor  selling,  when  the 
man  who  was  really  responsible  was  the  silk- 
hatted  mayor  of  the  city,  who  had  suavely 
greeted  me  as  I  walked  to  jail. 

My  next  editorial  was  entitled  "  More  News 
from  45,"  and  ran  as  follows: 

Speaking  of  money.  We  don't  use  it  in  here.  Quite 
a  convenience  for  us.  That,  probably,  is  why  Damon 
beat  it  instead  of  going  to  jail.  Brother  Damon  loves 

[197] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

money,  and  to  miss  handling  it  would  be  too  much  of  a 
privation  for  him. 

By  the  way,  visitors  are  allowed.  Where  is  Damon? 
Here  is  hisopportunity  to  show  there  is  no  ill  will.  Let 
him  motor  down  and  ask  for  No.  45  and  come  in  and 
say,  "Hello,  Howard,  I  am  Damon.  Can  I  do  any- 
thing for  you?"  And  we  would  say,  "Hello,  Old  Bluff. 
Where  is  the  Colonel?  Couldn't  he  come?  "  Well,  well, 
that  is  a  fine  joke,  and  all  our  own,  too. 


So  Jack  Cahill  is  out  of  town!  Dear,  dear,  Jack  is  a 
good  fellow!  He  means  well,  but,  bless  your  heart, 
there  was  no  need  of  his  going  away. 

Jack  never  told  us  anything;  in  fact,  we  put  him 
"wise"  several  times. 


How  this  jail  business  does  take  the  pride  out  of 
one!  We  certainly  thought  that  the  Dispatch  would 
go  to  the  bow-wows  if  we  left  the  office  for  an  hour;  and 
now  it  sells  better  than  ever.  Wonder  why? 

This  place  will  not  suit  us  for  the  summer.  We  can 
see  that  its  location  is  good  —  that  it  is  built  high 
enough  to  get  the  air  —  and  that  it  is  in  every  way 
secure;  but  the  crowd  that  run  it  are  a  bunch  of  rub- 

[198] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

bernecks.  They  are  too  much  interested  in  the 
boarders  —  always  watching  them  and  reading  their 
letters. 


The  life  in  jail  did  not  agree  with  me  very 
well.  It  was  a  good  enough  jail,  I  suppose,  as 
jails  go;  but  it  was  of  stone  and  the  walls  were 
damp,  and  by  the  second  evening  I  was  there 
I  was  suffering  from  an  attack  of  rheumatism 
which  was  decidedly  painful.  I  celebrated 
this  fact  in  an  editorial  on  Thursday  afternoon 
on  "Reading,  Rheumatism  and  Restlessness 
—  Describing  the  Occupation  and  Preoccu- 
pation of  My  Life  in  Cell  45. " 

THE    THREE    R'S 

The  thing  that  annoys  us  about  being  in  this  jail 
is  the  lack  of  respect  shown.  Isn't  it  natural  to  suppose 
that  a  person  in  jail  is  a  hardened  sinner  or  a  deep- 
dyed  villain?  We  always  thought  so;  but  here  it 
seems  different;  every  one  seems  to  think  it  a  huge 
joke.  There  is  a  broad  grin  on  every  side  and  no  one 
seems  to  feel  the  least  bit  sorry  for  us. 

[199] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

There  are  three  R's  in  jail  as  well  as  in  school.  They 
are:  "Reading,  Rheumatism  and  Restlessness."  We 
have  read  until  our  eyes  are  sore;  everything  from  the 
Twenty-third  Psalm  down  to  the  Annual  Report  of  the 
City  of  Salem.  The  Twenty- third  Psalm  is  the  finest 
thing  ever  written;  the  Annual  Report  of  the  City  of 

Salem  is No  you  don't,  now;  you  can't  catch  us;  we 

don't  want  to  go  to  jail  again.  Just  you  read  it  and  guess. 

The  smallness  of  our  cell  makes  us  Restless.  Lions 
can  pace  their  cages,  but  we  cannot  pace  this  cell. 
The  thing  is  too  small.  This  all  leads  to  Restlessness. 
No  exercise  is  allowed.  We  read;  we  write;  we  sit;  we 
stand;  we  think;  we  gaze  out;  we  eat;  and  we  smile. 
Then  we  do  it  all  over  again.  Restlessness  —  it  gets 
on  a  fellow's  nerves. 

Rheumatism  —  a  thin  specimen  of  humanity  has 
no  right  to  select  a  brick  or  stone  cell  to  sleep  in;  there 
is  dampness  in  all  such  buildings  and  it  gets  in  the 
system.  If  there  is  any  bone  in  our  miserable  body 
that  does  not  ache  with  Rheumatism  we  cannot  find  it. 

If  we  did  not  have  the  Rheumatism  and  did  not  feel 
so  Restless  the  Reading  and  Rest  would  be  a  change. 

That  afternoon  the  sheriff  came  into  the  cell 
and  took  all  my  newspapers  and  magazines 
[200] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

away,  leaving  me  only  my  writing  materials. 
When  I  saw  him  passing  by  an  hour  afterward 
I  asked  him  if  prisoners  were  not  allowed  to 
have  the  Bible,  and  he  brought  me  one  im- 
mediately. After  looking  it  over  for  an  hour, 
I  wrote  the  following  little  editorial: 

A  WARNING  TO  THE  RING 

Peradventure,  saith  the  Lord,  if  there  be  five  good 
men,  I  will  save  the  city. 

The  wicked  dig  a  pit  for  the  good  man,  and  fall  into 
it  themselves.  Oh,  ye  hypocrites  and  sinners! 

When  I  handed  this  copy  of  the  editorial 
to  the  Sheriff  to  give  to  the  boy  from  the 
office,  he  read  it  over  carefully,  as  he  did 
everything  I  sent  out.  It  reached  the  office 
about  4:30  in  the  afternoon  and  they  brought 
out  an  extra.  Half  an  hour  after  the  extra 
came  out,  all  the  newspapers,  magazines  and 
books  were  restored  to  me  and  I  commenced 
on  Friday  morning's  editorial.  Six  or  seven 
[201] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

times  I  was  allowed  out  of  my  cell  to  walk  up 
and  down  the  corridor,  and  I  was  allowed  to 
talk  to  the  prisoners.  Without  going  into  de- 
tail I  can  say  here  that  I  got  more  informa- 
tion about  the  political  ring  in  Salem  in  three 
days  inside  the  jail  than  in  months  outside. 

On  Thursday  afternoon,  after  I  had  sent 
out  my  editorial,  I  was  suffering  so  from 
rheumatism  that  I  had  them  telephone  a  doc- 
tor I  knew,  to  come  to  see  me.  The  Sheriff 
refused  to  allow  me  to  have  my  doctor  and 
insisted  that  I  see  the  one  regularly  employed 
by  the  jail.  When  he  came  he  prescribed 
some  medicine  for  me  and  told  me  that  I 
should  be  transferred  upstairs  into  the  hospi- 
tal. I  refused  to  go  up  to  the  hospital  and 
told  the  Sheriff  and  doctor  I  would  not  take 
the  medicine  unless  I  had  my  own  doctor. 
The  next  morning  my  case  was  called  in 
court. 

[202] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

As  I  left  the  jail,  I  noticed  a  little  boy 
asleep  on  the  steps.  It  was  Johnny.  He  had 
been  there  all  night. 

The  hearing  was  very  brief.  My  lawyer 
from  Mr.  Brandeis's  office  was  now  present. 
We  waived  examination,  and  the  case  was  put 
over  to  the  Grand  Jury.  Sanborn  put  up  a 
piece  of  real  estate;  Ed  Allen  put  up  two 
hundred  dollars  in  cash;  and  I  returned  to  the 
Dispatch  office  to  continue  my  newspaper 
work,  and  to  hammer  on  my  campaign  for 
mayor. 


[203] 


CHAPTER  XV 

A3UT  a  week  or  ten  days  after  I  had 
got  out  of  jail,  I  was  at  work  in  the 
tiny  office  of  the  Dispatch  when  a 
stranger  came  in.     I  looked  up  and  saw  a 
very  small  man,  surmounted  by  a  silk  hat, 
standing  in  the  middle  of  the  floor. 

"My  name  is  Hunt,"  said  the  small  man  in 
an  excited  voice,  "and  I  have  been  sued  for 
libel." 

"Well,  I  didn't  do  it,  did  I?"  said  I. 
It  was  a  mystery  to  me;  I  had  never  seen  the 
man  before. 

"This  is  serious  business,"  said  the  little 
man.  "I  am  the  Mayor  of  Newburyport, 
and  I  may  have  to  go  to  jail. " 

I  found  out  then  that  he  had  come  down  to 
[204] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

get  my  advice  as  an  expert  defendant  in  libel 
suits.  My  trial  and  imprisonment  had  been 
in  all  the  Boston  papers,  and  I  had  been  widely 
advertised  by  my  fight  with  the  political  ring. 

"I  am  sick  of  the  whole  thing,"  said  the 
Mayor  of  Newburyport.  "I'd  sell  you  my 
paper  cheap. " 

I  was  as  hard  up  as  ever.  The  Dispatch  had 
never  made  both  ends  meet  —  though  it  had 
grown  to  a  big  circulation  —  because  it  car- 
ried practically  no  advertising.  I  was  as 
willing  to  take  a  chance  in  Newburyport  as  I 
had  been  in  Salem.  Libel  suits  had  lost  their 
terrors  for  me.  So  Hunt's  offer  interested  me. 

His  sheet,  the  Newburyport  Item,  would 
bring  me  sixty  dollars  a  week,  he  said,  and  he 
would  take  thirty-five  hundred  dollars  for  it. 

I  arranged  with  him  to  pay  him  for  his  plant 
and  paper  in  this  way:  fifty  dollars  down  for 
the  newspaper,  and  thirty-five  hundred  dollars 
[205] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

for  his  plant  in  notes  of  seventy  dollars,  due 
every  week  until  the  whole  sum  was  paid. 
At  the  end  of  that  period  the  plant  would  be 
mine. 

Now,  if  the  Item  would  earn  sixty  dollars  a 
week,  and  I  had  to  pay  him  seventy  dollars,  I 
would  need  to  raise  only  ten  dollars  a  week  to 
buy  the  plant.  I  took  the  offer.  As  security, 
Hunt  demanded  and  got  a  majority  of  the 
stock  of  the  new  corporation  I  was  forming  to 
take  over  the  Dispatch. 

For  two  weeks  I  got  out  a  paper  in  New- 
buryport,  together  with  two  in  Salem,  and 
incidentally  promoted  my  campaign  for  mayor 
of  Salem,  vibrating  rapidly  between  the  two 
cities. 

Before  this  time  was  up  I  found  that  the 

Newburyport  Item  earned  far  less  than  the 

sixty  dollars  I  had  counted  on.    A  good  share 

of  the  advertising  had  been  taken  by  Mr. 

[206] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

Hunt,  who  was  a  married  man,  in  groceries 
and  clothing,  which  helped  me  very  little. 
Such  matters  as  a  contract  for  three  dollars  a 
week  in  services  from  a  woman's  hairdresser 
had  no  very  tangible  value  to  me. 

I  had  carried  the  Item  as  far  as  I  could  go. 
If  it  did  not  earn  sixty  dollars  a  week  I  could 
not  pay  seventy. 

At  the  end  of  the  first  week,  when  my  note 
came  due,  Mr.  Hunt  was  away  on  a  vacation; 
at  the  end  of  the  second  week  he  appeared  in 
my  office  demanding  the  payment  of  my  two 
weekly  notes  which  were  now  due. 

That  day  —  it  was  Saturday,  August  14, 
1909  —  was  one  of  unusual  interest  for  me. 
At  ten  o'clock  the  Mayor  of  Newburyport 
appeared  for  payment  of  his  two  notes.  I 
explained  to  him  as  best  I  could,  in  breaks  in 
his  conversation,  that  I  couldn't  possibly  pay 
him;  I  didn't  have  the  money.  He  went  out 
[207] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

of  my  office  threatening  vengeance.  He  was 
a  very  excitable  man.  At  eleven  o'clock  I 
passed  along  the  street  and  saw  him  sitting 
in  the  office  of  my  wealthy  competitor,  Damon 
of  the  News. 

Early  that  afternoon  I  was  arrested  again 
for  criminal  libel  —  this  time  by  Damon. 
For  a  while  it  looked  as  if  this  warrant  of  my 
competitor,  which  had  been  sworn  out  on 
Thursday  and  was  not  served  until  Saturday 
afternoon,  would  keep  me  in  jail  over  Sunday. 
I  thought,  however,  of  a  local  liquor  dealer, 
Daniel  T.  Haggerty  —  a  good  hater  of  the 
News  and  a  man  famous  locally  for  helping  the 
"under  dog'*  —  and  he  came  to  my  help  with 
eight  hundred  dollars  bail. 

So  Sunday  I  didn't  stay  in  jail.  But  on 
Monday  my  troubles  started  in  promptly  with 
the  business  week.  In  the  morning  the  fore- 
man at  the  Newburyport  plant  told  me,  by 
[208] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

telephone,  that  Mr.  Hunt  had  taken  it  back 
and  forbade  me  the  premises.  That  broke 
my  contract  to  buy  his  plant,  but  left  me 
owner  of  the  Newburyport  newspaper.  It 
stood  me  fifty  dollars  in  cash,  and  the  hundred 
and  forty  dollars  still  due  for  the  two  weeks  in 
which  I  ran  the  plant. 

That  afternoon  I  began  to  hear  rumours  that 
my  rival  Damon  owned  control  of  my  own 
newspaper,  the  Dispatch,  and  that  finally  he 
had  me  cornered. 

What  had  really  happened  was  what  I 
suspected  when  I  saw  Hunt  with  Damon. 
Hunt  had  taken  to  Damon  the  stock  in  my 
new  Maine  company  which  I  had  given  him  as 
collateral  when  I  gave  him  notes  for  his  news- 
paper plant.  I  had  formed  this  Maine  cor- 
poration to  take  my  newspaper  from  the 
Massachusetts  company  which  held  it  first. 
A  company  under  Massachusetts  laws  could 
[209] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

have  no  shares  of  less  than  ten  dollars,  and  I 
went  to  Maine  to  get  the  right  to  issue  shares 
of  a  dollar,  so  that  I  could  get  small  subscrip- 
tions from  people  who  could  afford  to  take  a 
chance  with  a  dollar  or  two,  but  not  ten. 

But  Damon  hadn't  cornered  me  quite  yet; 
for  my  property  hadn't  been  transferred  yet  to 
the  Maine  corporation.  All  that  Hunt  had  to 
sell  was  certificates  in  the  shell  corporation, 
which  had  no  assets  or  contents. 

Finally  they  discovered  this,  and  Mr.  Hunt 
went  back  to  his  printing  plant  in  Newbury- 
port,  leaving  Damon  and  me  to  fight  it  out 
alone  —  he  with  his  libel  suit  and  I  with 
my  struggling  newspaper.  That  fall  Hunt 
shipped  his  plant  to  Kansas.  He  left  Newbury- 
port  before  his  term  of  mayor  really  expired. 
What  became  of  his  libel  suit,  which  drove  him 
across  my  field  of  activity  in  Salem,  I  never 
knew.  I  afterward  paid  him  the  hundred  and 
[210] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

forty  dollars  with  interest.  But  from  that 
time  on  my  own  troubles  furnished  a  con- 
tinuous occupation  for  my  mind. 

One  night,  during  these  weeks  of  excitement 
which  followed  my  release  from  jail,  I  had  a 
setback  of  an  unexpected  nature.  I  lost  my 
affidavit  concerning  the  big  political  graft  in 
Salem  which  had  been  given  me  by  Ned  Bates. 


CHAPTER  XVI 

I   WAS  alone  in  my  office.    There  was  a 
chill   in   the    air    and   I    lighted   a    fire 
in  the  stove.     Sitting    before   it  I  was 
thinking  of  my  trial  yet  to  come.     The  affi- 
davit made  by  Ned  Bates  was  in  the  inside 
pocket  of  my  vest.     I  always  carried  it  there 
for  safety. 

The  door  downstairs  opened  and  two  people 
came  up,  passed  through  the  outer  office  and 
came  into  my  little  room.     I  recognized  Mrs. 
Bates  and  her  little  daughter  Nellie. 
"I  am  Mrs.  Bates,"  she  said. 
I  arose  and  gave  her  a  seat.     The  little  girl 
went  over  in  the  corner  and  sat  on  a  bundle  of 
papers.     She  was  a  frail  little  girl  with  large, 
dark  eyes. 

[212] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

After  seating  herself  Mrs.  Bates  turned  to 
me  and  said: 

:<You  have  a  confession  from  Mr.  Bates 
about  the  paving  deal,  haven't  you?" 

"Yes,  "I  replied. 

"Will  you  give  it  to  me?"  she  asked. 

"I  could  not,"  I  replied  firmly. 

"Why?"  she  asked  nervously. 

"  Because  I  am  going  to  use  it, "  I  answered. 

"In  what  way?"  she  asked. 

"I  don't  know  yet,"  I  replied. 

"  You  are  not  going  to  publish  it,  are  you?" 
she  asked,  almost  in  terror.  Nellie  began  to 
cry. 

"Probably,"  I  replied.  "But  that  need 
not  trouble  you.  It  will  not  get  Mr.  Bates 
into  trouble. " 

"But  how  about  Nellie  and  me?"  she  asked. 

"You  are  all  right,"  I  answered. 

"We  won't  be  all  right  if  you  print  such  a 
[213] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

story,"  she  answered.  "It  would  ruin  us 
forever. " 

I  sat  silent.     Nellie  was  still  crying  quietly. 

"Will  you  give  it  to  me?"  Mrs.  Bates 
repeated. 

"  Really, "  I  replied, "  that  would  be  impossi- 
ble. It  is  part  of  my  defence  in  my  libel  suit. " 

"And  incidentally  will  elect  you  mayor," 
she  interrupted. 

"That  is  not  the  object,"  I  replied. 

"Then  why  use  it?"  she  asked.  "It  is  no 
crime  to  forget." 

"That  is  not  the  question,"  I  answered. 
"It  will  not  get  Mr.  Bates  in  trouble,  but  it 
will  correct  the  system  that  exists  of  a  few 
people  robbing  the  many. " 

"Why  should  you  do  that?"  she  asked. 

"Because  it  is  my  duty,"  I  replied. 

"Your  duty!  Your  duty!"  she  almost 
screamed.  "And  who  are  you  that  talks 
[214] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

duty?  Have  you  always  done  your  duty? 
Did  you  do  your  duty  when  you  deceived 
your  father?  If  you  always  did  your  duty, 
would  you  be  here  to-day  away  from  your 
family  and  away  from  your  friends?  You're 
a  fine  one  to  preach  duty  here. " 

The  little  girl  was  staring  at  me  with  her 
big  eyes,  an  occasional  tremor  going  through 
her  frame. 

I  got  up  from  my  seat  and  paced  the  floor. 
How  could  I  get  rid  of  her?  How  could  I 
calm  her?  I  must  be  firm. 

"Well?  "she  asked. 

"I  am  sorry,"  I  said,  "but  I  must  refuse 


vou." 


"The  Dispatch  says  the  time  to  be  sorry  is 
before  you  do  a  thing,"  she  said  sharply. 

I  could  not  reply.  The  little  girl  was 
sobbing. 

"It's  cruel  of  you,"  she  said,  "very  cruel  of 
[215] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

you  to  harm  Nellie  and  me  just  to  further  your 
ambitions.  It's  a  shame  to  make  us  suffer. 
You  claim  to  be  honorable,  but  you  don't 
hesitate  to  take  advantage  of  a  man  who  is 
drunk.  I  think  it  is  contemptible  on  your  part 
and  hard  and  unjust  on  us  who  are  defenseless. 
When  I  married  Ned  he  was  a  good  man,  he 
did  not  drink,  did  not  lie,  did  not  take  what 
did  not  belong  to  him,  but  politics  ruined  him; 
ruined  him  and  will  ruin  us.  I  don't  care! 
I  don't  care!  I  married  him  for  better  or  for 
worse  and  I'm  going  to  stick  by  him  no  matter 
what  he  does.  He's  my  Ned  and  I  love  him. " 
A  film  seemed  to  come  in  front  of  my  eyes. 
I  could  see  far,  far  away.  There  was  my  old 
father  with  the  tears  in  his  eyes,  saying  he 
could  do  no  more  for  me.  It  was  but  the  act 
of  a  moment  to  tear  open  my  vest.  It  took 
but  a  second  to  thrust  the  paper  in  the  stove. 
The  fire  seemed  to  be  waiting  for  it  and  the 
[216] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

flame  licked  it  up.  I  sank  in  my  seat  and  my 
head  dropped  on  my  arm. 

Mrs.  Bates  rose  slowly  and  started  for  the 
door  with  Nellie.  She  did  not  say  a  word, 
but  as  she  passed  me  she  laid  her  hand  lightly 
on  my  shoulder. 

I  heard  them  go  to  the  stairs  and  heard 
Mrs.  Bates  start  to  descend.  Suddenly  there 
was  a  rush  toward  me,  two  little  arms  were 
thrown  around  my  neck,  and  a  face  wet  with 
tears  was  pressed  to  mine. 


[217] 


CHAPTER  XVII 

THERE  are  some  things  you  can't  tell 
your  friends.     Ed  and  Bill  would  not 
understand.     I  don't  understand  my- 
self.    We  have  our  moments  that  we  do  such 
things.     The    world    says    they    are   foolish. 
Perhaps  they  are.     I  am  just  a  human  being 
after  all  and  any  one  in  my  position  would 
have  done  the  same.     So  I  did  not  tell  even 
Curtis.     I  simply  took  up  my  work  and  went 
steadily  on. 

I  was  invited  to  speak  before  two  church 
clubs,  and  a  literary  society.  I  talked  good 
government  and  was  well  listened  to.  Mean- 
time I  was  pouring  hot  shot  into  the  Colonel  and 
Damon.  Alderman  Doyle  I  left  alone.  I  had 
him.  Already  the  Board  of  Aldermen  were  after 
[218] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

the  Chief  of  Police,  and  the  News  was  tangled 
up  defending  all  my  opponents*  misdeeds.  I 
had  them  all  guessing.  What  did  I  know? 
When  would  the  next  explosion  take  place? 
It  always  seemed  to  me  that  the  average 
newspaper  carried  so-called  muck-raking  too 
far.  Don't  misunderstand  me.  I  used  the 
word  muck-raking  as  the  average  reader 
knows  it.  I  did  not  consider  myself  a  muck- 
raker,  but  I  was  fully  aware  that  I  would 
shortly  be  so  styled.  My  contention  was 
that  the  case  of  Salem  required  a  surgeon's 
knife,  not  some  mild  medicine.  To  arouse 
the  voter  it  is  necessary  to  use  strong  words, 
but  at  the  same  time,  the  greatest  effect  will 
be  made  by  contrast.  Therefore,  I  should 
praise  some  man,  not  damn  all.  Among  the 
members  of  the  Board  of  Aldermen  was  a 
man  named  Rufus  D.  Adams.  He  was  super- 
intendent of  a  Sunday  School.  Mr.  Adams, 
[2191 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

in  the  opinion  of  the  average  citizen,  was  a 
highly  respectable  gentlemen.  Certain  it  was 
that  he  was  honest.  In  my  opinion  he  was 
not  over-burdened  with  brains.  However,  he 
had  a  good  face,  was  easy  in  manner  and 
looked  a  good  man  to  bolster  up.  His  honesty, 
in  my  opinion,  would  counterbalance  his  weak 
nature.  And  so  I  decided  to  feature  Mr. 
Adams  up.  He  was  the  best  one  in  the  city 
government  and  it  would  prevent  any  one 
from  saying  that  I  slammed  everybody.  A  lit- 
tle newspaper  praise  and  we  had  him  walking 
with  his  chest  expanded.  He  was  easy  to 
flatter,  and  the  prominence  given  his  honesty 
made  him  anxious  to  fill  the  role  we  had 
selected  for  him.  If  Mr.  Adams  asked  a 
question  about  some  order  in  the  Board  of 
Aldermen,  we  put  a  big  heading  on  it  and 
called  attention  to  his  honest  efforts  to  look 
out  for  the  city. 

[220] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

Strange  words  these,  are  they  not?  But 
remember  the  game  I  was  up  against.  Adams 
never  deceived  me  for  a  moment.  I  knew  he 
was  like  putty,  and  I  realized  that  if  the  ring 
ever  half  tried,  they  could  make  him  do  as 
they  wished,  but  by  featuring  him  up  I  put 
him  in  the  spotlight  and  made  it  impossible 
for  them  to  manipulate  him. 

I  dug  up  a  little  horse  deal  in  which  Adams 
had  asked  some  questions  of  the  dealer.  I 
used  big  type  and  wrote  it  up  strongly,  in- 
sinuating that  Alderman  Adams  had  put  his 
foot  down  hard.  All  this  was  a  bit  risky,  for 
the  people  might  select  Adams  as  a  candidate 
for  mayor,  but  I  took  the  chance  that  the 
average  man  does  not  do  much  thinking. 
And  so,  behold  Alderman  Adams,  the  champion 
of  Good  Government,  made  so  by  the  power 
of  the  press. 

It  was  just  at  this  time  that  a  man  came  to 
[221] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

me  with  a  whole  page  advertisement.  We  set 
up  eight  proofs  for  him  before  we  pleased  him. 
Finally  it  came  out  and  he  came  down  to  our 
office  and  paid  his  bill  and  said  that  he  had  had 
such  good  returns  that  he  wanted  to  pay 
something  extra  and  gave  me  a  ten-dollar 
gold  piece,  which  I  put  in  my  inside  pocket 
and  kept  for  reserve. 

It  was  Old  Home  Week  and  the  city  govern- 
ment was  going  to  give  a  series  of  entertain- 
ments which  took  the  form  of  a  parade,  a 
celebration  on  a  battleship  in  the  harbour  and 
a  big  dinner.  The  Dispatch  was  forgotten 
when  the  invitations  were  sent  out  and  I 
criticised  the  entertainment  committee  se- 
verely for  their  action.  Colonel  Peterson  was 
at  the  head  of  the  entertainment  committee, 
so  I  don't  suppose  he  felt  that  he  could  con- 
sider having  me  around. 

On  the  third  day  of  the  celebration  the 
[£22] 


THE  MAN  WHO  BUCKED  UP 
children  from  the  Orphan  Asylum  were  taken 
down  to  the  shore  with  the  intention  of 
showing  them  over  the  battleship.  There 
were  two  hundred  of  them  and  they  had  been 
there  about  an  hour  when  I  arrived.  One  of 
the  alderman,  who  was  in  wrong  with  the 
political  ring,  came  over  to  me  and  said:  "It  is 
a  perfect  outrage;  they're  having  a  big  cele- 
bration on  board  the  boat  with  wine  and  cigars, 
and  these  children  were  brought  down  here, 
and  as  the  city  government  have  arrived 
they  cannot  take  the  children  on  board,  and  it 
looks  pretty  bad  to  see  them  standing  over 
there  alone. 

"If  I  had  ten  dollars,"  he  said,  "I  would 
blow  them  to  some  peanuts  and  ice 

cream. " 

"And  so  would  I,"  I  replied,  walking  down 
to  the  shore  to  take  a  look  at  the  battle- 
ship. 

[223] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

There  seemed  something  familiar  about 
ten  dollars,  and  suddenly  there  flashed  through 
my  mind  that  I  had  the  ten-dollar  gold  piece 
in  my  inside  pocket,  and  I  went  over  to  the 
restaurant  and  asked  the  man  how  much  he 
would  charge  to  supply  two  hundred  plates 
of  ice  cream  and  a  bag  of  peanuts  each  for 
the  children,  and  he  said  fourteen  dollars.  I 
told  him  I  had  only  ten  dollars,  but  I  would 
owe  him  four  dollars.  He  said  he  would  do  it 
for  ten  dollars,  and  I  went  over  to  the  Sisters 
who  were  gathered  in  a  group,  undecided 
what  to  do,  and  I  said  to  them: 

"I  am  Mr.  Howard  of  the  Dispatch  and  I 
have  heard  that  there  has  been  some  disar- 
rangement of  the  plans  for  the  children.  If 
you  will  have  them  go  up  into  the  pavilion,  I 
will  treat  them  all  to  ice  cream  and  pea- 
nuts." 

They  marched  the  children  in  and  they  were 
[224] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 
served  with  ice  cream  and  peanuts  while  I 
stood  in  the  background  with  the  alderman 
"who  was  in  wrong"  and  watched  them.     A 
ten-dollar  gold  piece  spent  that  way  gives 
better  satisfaction  than  ten  dollars  to  a  head 
waiter  in  New  York  who  owns  plenty  of  real 
estate.     "A   fool   and   his   money   are   soon 
parted,"  perhaps,  but  I  am  not  sorry.    I  can 
hear  the  voices  of  the  children  to-day   say- 
ing, "It's  ice  cream,"  "and  peanuts,    too." 
Things  have  a  way  of  evening  up  in  this  world. 
Johnny  brought  ice  cream  to  me  in  jail,  his 
treat.     Why  shouldn't  I  treat  some  one  that 
was  worse  off  than  I? 

The  hearing  in  my  second  libel  suit  came. 
It  was  upon  eight  counts,  based  upon  articles 
I  had  printed  concerning  Damon  and  his 
paper.  In  almost  every  way  it  was  like  the 
case  brought  in  the  name  of  Alderman  Doyle. 
The  same  attorneys  appeared.  The  com- 
[225] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

plaint  was  brought,  not  by  the  complainant, 
but  by  another  minor  official  in  the  police 
department.  The  plaintiff,  as  in  the  other 
case,  failed  to  appear  against  me.  The  Police 
Inspector  testified  that  he  had  read  the  items 
in  the  Dispatch  about  Mr.  Damon,  kept  track 
of  them  for  months  for  the  safety  of  the  city, 
and  now  swore  out  the  complaint  on  his  own 
initiative,  without  any  suggestions  from  any 
one  else.  The  witnesses  were  just  the  same 
as  in  the  Doyle  case.  I  was  bound  over,  as 
in  the  other  case,  to  the  Grand  Jury  —  this 
time  under  eight  hundred  dollars,  which  was 
furnished  by  Dan  Haggerty,  the  same  man 
who  put  up  for  me  when  the  complaint  was 
first  made  four  days  before. 

I  had  no  fear  of  Damon  or  his  libel  suit. 
In  the  first  issue  after  my  arrest,  I  left  out 
my  editorial  and  placed  in  its  column  the 
words: 

[226] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

"THOSE  WHOM  THE  GODS  WOULD  DE- 
STROY THEY  FIRST  MAKE  MAD" 

The  next  day  I  printed  the  following  edi- 
torial : 

We  have  been  very  naughty.  We  have  been  a  dis- 
obedient child.  We  have  hurt  a  sensitive  plant. 

Isn't  it  too  bad? 

And  now  it  turns  and  says,  "I  don't  want  to  play 
in  your  yard,  I  don't  like  you  any  more,"  and  then 
spends  a  lot  of  money  getting  after  a  "poor  editor." 

Were  you  there  yesterday? 

Did  you  hear  what  a  terrible  crea  ure  this  Howard 
is?  Why  it  took  two  expensive  men  to  tell  what  a 
wicked  little  pen  he  has. 


Do  you  believe  any  one  cares  what  one  editor  says 
about  the  other? 

When  a  man  rushes  to  law  he  rushes  to  madness. 
We  thought  and  still  think  that  a  man  who  cannot 
take  a  joke  is  a  zero. 

We  told  our  tale  of  woe  to  a  big  Boston  lawyer  and 
he  said  that  in  his  opinion  we  were  both  guilty. 


No  one  takes  it  seriously  when  one  rival  sues  another. 
Place  a  diamond  between  two  jewellers.     One  will 

[227] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

say  it  is  fine,  and  the  other  that  it  is  not.  Which 
knows?  Which  is  wrong? 

We  think  the  Dispatch  is  the  best  paper  published. 
Thirty-seven  thousand  nine  hundred  and  sixty-two 
other  editors  think  theirs  is  the  best.  Once  in  a  while 
we  say  little  things  about  one  another.  If  we  all  got 
mad  the  courts  would  be  choked  with  business. 

Sensitive  plants  are  all  right  in  the  garden,  but  they 
perish  in  the  city. 


One  flea  will  make  a  dog  just  as  wild  as  twen  y  fleas. 


This  second  suit  created  more  excitement 
than  the  first.  There  were  five  hundred 
people  hi  the  court  room  at  the  time  of  the 
trial.  My  circulation  jumped  up  again  to 
seven  or  eight  thousand  copies,  and  from 
every  indication  the  sympathy  of  the  public 
was  with  me.  My  campaign  for  mayor 
went  on  with  renewed  success. 


[228] 


CHAPTER  XVIII 

NOT  long  after  that  my  father  returned 
from  Europe,  and  wrote  to  me  that 
he  would  like  to  see  me.     He  asked 
me  to  come  halfway  to  New  York  to  meet 
him.     I  went  down  one  Sunday  and  met  him 
in  New  London,  where  we  talked  for  two  hours. 
He  had  not  heard  of  either  of  my  arrests, 
and  was  a  little  troubled  when  I  told  him 
about  them.     I  told  him  they  didn't  amount 
to  anything;  but  he  suggested  that  he  would 
make  some  kind  of  settlement,  and  offered 
me  a  small  amount  of  money  if  I  would  go 
away  and  live  quietly  somewhere  else.     I  told 
him  I  proposed  to  stay  and  fight  the  thing  out 
where  I  was,  and  he  acquiesced. 

We  both  noticed  the  change  in  each  other,  I 
[229] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

think.  He  had  grown  very  old  and  feeble,  and 
said  he  would  probably  never  see  me  again. 
When  we  parted  I  thought  him  a  very  pathetic 
figure.  Every  day  after  that  until  election 
day  I  received  a  letter  from  my  father  every 
morning,  and  every  letter  contained  a  five- 
dollar  bill. 

In  the  middle  of  September  the  Grand  Jury 
met.  Damon  rode  over  to  the  court  house  on 
the  first  day;  but  Doyle  left  for  Rhode  Island. 
There  was  a  good  deal  of  excitement  over  this, 
and  the  District  Attorney  threatened  to  throw 
the  case  out  of  court.  That  morning  Damon 
was  telephoning  around  to  find  Doyle  and  get 
him  to  the  court  house.  That  night  Doyle 
returned  from  Rhode  Island. 

I  came  out  with  scare  headlines  in  my  paper 

the  next  day,  saying  that  Damon  had  brought 

Doyle  back  to  save  the  suits.    That  morning 

the  District  Attorney  brought  the  two  cases 

[230] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

before  the  Grand  Jury,  and  they  found  indict- 
ments against  me  on  both  counts. 

The  next  morning  I  came  out  with  an  edi- 
torial which  I  called: 

THE  TRIUMPH  OF  RIGHT 

There  are  times  when  the  poor  man  must  not  only 
fight,  but  must  fight  hard  for  existence  —  when  the 
concentrated  money  powers  do  all  in  their  power  to 
wipe  him  out  of  existence.  It  is  then  that  the  powerful 
corporations,  with  their  bulging  pockets  of  gold, 
lavishly  contribute  to  crush  the  weak.  This  is  a  pathetic 
time  for  the  poor;  a  time  when  courage  is  needed;  a 
time  when  a  man  must  stand  up  and,  single-handed, 
watch  the  Octopus  approach;  see  its  devouring,  grasp- 
ing, relentless  mouth  smacking  its  lips  in  expectation. 

Poverty  has  indeed  its  sorrow;  poverty  has  indeed 
its  troubles;  but  every  setback  to  the  man  with  a  pur- 
pose is  only  an  incentive  to  harder  work  and  more 
determination. 

The  man  who  fights  for  the  people  must  expect  to 
have  the  corporations  and  the  wealthy,  the  wrong- 
doer, and  the  politicians  against  him.  He  must  face 
the  "combine,"  the  "system,"  and  the  "ring,"  and 
expect  the  concentration  of  capital  against  him. 
[231] 


THE  MAN  WHO  BUCKED  UP 
My  associate  editor,  Curtis,  was  indicted 
with  me  by  the  Grand  Jury,  and  before  he 
could  find  bail  was  compelled  to  go  to  jail  for  a 
short  time.  Through  my  paper  I  demanded 
an  early  trial  and  it  was  expected  in  the  second 
week  in  October. 

Just  before  the  Superior  Court  adjourned 
hi  the  middle  of  the  month  my  case  was 
called,  and  again  Damon  came  into  promi- 
nence. The  Doyle  case  had  been  started  over 
a  month  before  Damon's,  and  now  the  Damon 
case  was  called  up  first.  It  was  an  extraordi- 
nary thing,  and  naturally  attracted  attention. 
Mr.  Doyle  was  very  clearly  not  anxiously 
pushing  his  case;  and  Damon  and  his 
attorney,  Sullivan,  were  more  and  more 
conspicuous. 

But  the  Damon  case  was  merely  called,  and 
then  went  over  for  several  months  before  the 
trial,   as  the  court   immediately   adjourned. 
[232] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

As  for  me,  at  the  time  my  case  was  called  I 
was  in  the  hospital  —  for  political  reasons. 

Among  the  first  of  the  politicians  whom  I 
attacked  in  Salem  were  the  McSweeney 
brothers,  who,  second  only  to  Attorney  Sulli- 
van, Damon's  lawyer,  made  political  and 
business  capital  out  of  the  liquor  business. 
The  extraordinary  adroitness  with  which  they 
handled  this  main  asset  of  theirs  I  had  cele- 
brated early  in  my  editorial: 

BOTH  SIDES  AND  THE  MIDDLE 

The  other  day  we  wandered  into  an  office  where  the 
sign  in  front  read  "  Attorney s-at-Law,"  and  we  asked 
the  girl  if  Mr.  McSweeney  was  in. 

"What  do  you  want  to  see  him  about?"  she  said. 

"Why,  what  difference  does  that  make?"  we 
replied. 

"Well,"  she  answered,  "if  it  is  about  politics  it 
makes  a  lot  of  difference  which  brother  you  see." 

"Kindly  explain,"  we  said,  leaning  gracefully  up 
against  the  counter  and  lighting  a  huge  cigar. 
[233] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

"Well,  it's  just  this  way:  Billy,  the  first  partner,  is 
a  Republican,  and  treasurer  of  the  Local  Republican 
Committee;  so  if  it's  anything  in  reference  to  Repub- 
lican politics  you  must  see  him  about  it. 

"  Morgan  is  a  Democrat,  and  treasurer  of  the  Local 
Democratic  Committee,  and  if  you  are  a  Democrat 
you  must  see  him.  On  the  other  hand,"  she  added, 
"if  you  want  to  be  perfectly  independent,  or  join  any 
of  the  parties  like  the  Socialist  or  the  Prohibition, 
Parkie  will  look  out  for  you." 

"I  hope  the  brothers  all  agree,"  we  said. 

"Oh,  certainly,"  she  replied;  "they  all  get  along 
splendidly  together." 

Whereupon  we  said:  "Well,  we  wish  to  see  one  of 
the  brothers  on  a  political  matter.  Which  one  shall 
we  see?' 

"Well,"  she  said,  "if  you  are  looking  for  a  license 
you  should  see  Morgan,  who  is  a  license  com- 
missioner; when  you  go  to  hire  your  building,  you 
must  see  Parkie,  who  takes  care  of  the  real  estate 
department;  and  Bill  would  be  your  attorney  to  draw 
the  papers." 

"Say,"  we  asked,  "do  you  ever  lose  anything  up  in 
this  office?" 

"No,"  she  replied,  with  a  laugh;  "we  play  both  sides 
and  the  middle." 

[234] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

In  addition  to  having  all  the  facilities  for 
serving  the  liquor  business,  all  the  Mc- 
Sweeneys  were  active  members  of  the  Total 
Abstinence  Society.  When  Billy,  who  was  an 
alderman,  came  out  as  a  candidate  for  mayor, 
the  three  brothers  directed  the  family  political 
machine  toward  his  election. 

One  day  in  the  middle  of  October  there  was 
a  big  temperance  parade  in  Salem,  in  which 
the  McSweeney  brothers  were  prominent 
paraders.  Two  hours  before,  the  candidate 
for  mayor  had  been  in  court  defending  a  man 
for  illegal  liquor-selling.  The  next  morning  I 
came  out  with  a  jocose  chronicle  of  the  candi- 
date's dual  role  in  the  Dispatch. 

As  I  went  down  to  Town  House  Square  on 
my  way  to  breakfast  the  next  morning,  Parker 
McSweeney  strode  up  to  me  with  a  copy  of  the 
Dispatch  in  his  hand,  and  exclaimed: 

"Did  you  write  that  article?" 
[235] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

"Yes,"  I  replied. 

"Unless  you  promise  to  retract  it  to- 
morrow morning,'*  he  said,  "I'll  thrash  you 
on  the  spot. " 

I  advised  him  to  go  down  to  the  North 
River  and  jump  in  and  cool  himself  off. 
Thereupon  he  jumped  at  me,  struck  me  on  the 
head,  and  knocked  me  down. 

McSweeney  was  a  powerful  man,  over  six 
feet  tall,  and  weighed  nearly  two  hundred 
pounds.  I  weighed  then  only  a  little  over  one 
hundred  pounds.  My  chances  were  slight. 
His  brother  Morgan  rushed  up  and  led  him 
away.  I  got  up  on  my  feet  and  went  down  to 
my  office,  where  I  dictated  an  account  of  the 
affair,  which  appeared  the  next  morning. 

My  friends  wanted  me  to  swear  out  a  war- 
rant for  the  man's  arrest,  but  I  refused,  and, 
turning  over  the  paper  to  Curtis,  I  went  to  a 
hospital  in  Boston  to  get  treatment.  There  I 

[236] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

found  I  was  not  seriously  hurt,  though  my 
left  arm  was  so  badly  bruised  that  it  was  for 
the  time  entirely  useless.  On  the  third  day, 
when  I  was  beginning  to  sit  up,  I  received  a 
telegram  saying  that  the  circulation  of  the 
Dispatch  had  fallen  off  half,  and  I  went  back 
immediately  to  Salem.  And  from  that  time 
until  election  day  I  was  in  harness  day  and 
night,  getting  out  the  newspaper  and  carrying 
on  my  campaign  for  mayor. 

It  was  a  fight  like  nothing  the  old  city  of 
Salem  had  ever  seen.  For  six  weeks  before 
the  election  I  carried  on  a  ceaseless  personal 
campaign.  Every  day  I  got  out  two  news- 
papers filled  with  politics.  My  paper  had 
only  two  set  articles  a  day  —  an  editorial 
and  a  leading  article.  They  were  sufficient. 
Salem  had  never  seen  such  articles,  and  the 
headlines  of  Hearst's  newspapers  were  small 
compared  to  mine.  Every  one  read  the 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

Dispatch;  even  Damon's  wife  had  her  news- 
boy deliver  it  to  her,  wrapped  up  inside  the 
Boston  paper.  Its  circulation  went  up  to 
eight  thousand. 

Every  night  I  spoke  from  three  to  ten  times. 
I  talked  everywhere  —  in  halls,  on  street 
corners,  and  in  barns.  I  visited  every  small 
store,  every  club,  every  place  where  men 
gathered.  I  visited  and  I  made  a  house-to- 
house  canvass  of  the  city.  I  had  been  in  the 
city,  you  must  remember,  less  than  a  year;  I 
had  just  been  able  to  register  as  a  voter  in 
Massachusetts;  and  it  was  necessary  for  me 
to  get  acquainted. 

Bill  Sanborn  and  Ed  Allen  were  back  of  me, 
directing.  Neither  one  of  them  had  been  in 
active  politics  before;  but  they  made  the 
shrewdest  of  politicians,  and  they  had  the  aid 
of  other  more  experienced  men.  They  had 
in  their  hands  a  check-list  of  every  voter  in 
[258] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

the  city,  and  they  and  their  friends  felt  the 
pulse  of  the  whole  community.  Whenever, 
they  met  the  objection  that  the  voter  did  not 
know  me,  they  gave  me  his  name,  and  I  made 
it  my  business  to  see  him.  As  there  were 
seventy-five  hundred  voters  in  the  city,  the 
field  of  my  activities  was  large. 

There  were  five  separate  candidates  in  the 
field  —  Hurley,  the  serving  mayor;  Mc- 
Sweeney;  Pollock,  a  barber  and  a  member  of 
the  State  Legislature;  Goodhue,  an  aristo- 
cratic citizen  nominated  by  the  Good  Govern- 
ment Association,  who  represented  the  "blue 
bloods,"  and  myself.  There  had  never  been 
such  an  aggregation  of  candidates  for  the 
mayoralty  in  quiet  Salem  before. 

All  of  us  men  ran,  not  as  candidates  of  any 
national  party,  but  as  non-partisan  candi- 
dates on  nomination  papers.  As  it  came 
time  for  the  filing  of  the  papers  I  was  anxious. 
[239] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

I  filed  mine  the  first  day  possible,  but  the 
others  delayed.  Rumour  said  that  some  of 
them  might  withdraw.  My  success  depended 
on  keeping  them  all  in  and  splitting  the  vote, 
so  I  began  to  use  my  strongest  weapon,  my 
newspaper,  to  force  them  all  to  run. 

First  I  came  out  with  a  statement  that 
Billy  McSweeney  was  going  to  quit.  This 
brought  him  out  with  the  statement  that  he 
would  never  withdraw.  Then  I  got  after 
Pollock  in  a  story  saying  that  he  had  been, 
ordered  out  of  the  race  by  Mayor  Hurley. 
This  brought  out  a  letter  from  Pollock  that  he 
would  be  in  until  the  counting  of  the  votes. 
There  was  no  occasion  to  bother  with  the 
others;  I  knew  they  would  never  quit.  So 
all  five  of  us  were  securely  in  the  race. 

Up  to  the  middle  of  November  not  a  single 
denial  had  been  made  of  my  articles  and  state- 
ments. I  was  supposed  to  be  a  joke  early 
[240] 


THE  MAN  WHO  BUCKED  UP 
in  the  campaign,  and  my  opposition  in  the 
political  gang  had  been  betting  that  I  would 
not  poll  five  hundred  votes.  But  three  weeks 
before  election  they  were  all  copying  me  and 
looking  for  newspaper  space  in  the  News. 
This  made  a  distressing  situation  for  Editor 
Damon. 

Up  to  that  time  it  was  the  fixed  policy  of  the 
News  never  to  mention  me,  either  as  a  candi- 
date or  as  an  editor.  My  name  never  ap- 
peared in  the  News.  But,  oh,  how  the  public 
were  warned  against  "gilded  youths,"  "New 
York  men,"  and  "strangers!"  Finally  the 
Good  Government  Association  came  out  in  a 
big  rally  with  a  tremendous  "slam"  upon  me 
for  using  my  newspaper  to  further  my  per- 
sonal campaign.  A  great  chance  for  me!  The 
next  day  I  came  out  with  four  blank  columns. 
At  the  head  of  the  first  column  was  the  fol- 
lowing :  "This  column  is  placed  at  the  disposal 
[2411 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

of  W.  H.  McSweeney  to  say  what  he  pleases 
about  himself  or  our  editor."  The  other 
three  blank  columns  were  dedicated  to  the 
other  three  candidates  in  the  same  way.  I 
carried  the  blank  columns  for  several  days, 
but  no  advantage  was  taken  of  them  by  the 
other  candidates. 

In  the  meantime  I  called  attention  to  the 
fact  that  my  newspaper  aimed  to  be  fair  to 
every  one,  and  I  adopted  the  slogan  which  I 
carried  to  the  end  of  the  campaign: 

IF  YOU  WANT  ANOTHER  NEWSPAPER  IN 
SALEM,  VOTE  FOR  HOWARD 

It  was  very  successful.  The  News  had  had 
a  monopoly  of  the  field  for  years.  Its  editor 
was  very  arbitrary  about  what  he  chose  to 
print,  and  he  had  accumulated  a  number  of 
enemies  who  felt  that  he  had  treated  their 
affairs  harshly  in  his  paper. 

Meanwhile,  I  felt  that  I  was  getting  ac- 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

quainted,  and  that  I  had  gained  a  good  many 
friends  in  the  city;  the  young  business  men  of 
the  city,  influenced  largely  by  the  respect  they 
had  for  Sanborn  and  Ed  Allen,  were  coming 
my  way.  The  labouring  population  were 
friendly,  and  I  had  reached  quite  a  number  of 
people  through  my  big  acquaintance  with  the 
children  of  the  city.  I  was  always  fond  of 
children,  and  made  it  a  point  to  speak  to 
every  one  I  passed  on  the  street.  On  two 
occasions  I  had  entertained  big  gatherings  of 
them,  and  most  of  the  children  knew  Editor 
Howard.  With  Nellie  Bates  and  Johnny,  the 
newsboy,  I  had  cemented  a  close  friendship. 
Both  of  my  small  friends  would  be  twelve  on 
their  next  birthdays;  both  were  firmly  con- 
vinced that  I  would  be  elected. 

It  happened  one  day  that  they  both  were 
in  my  office.     Johnny  sat  on  the  table  and 
glared  at  Nellie,  who  was  just  going  out  on  an 
[243] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

errand  for  me.     When  she  had  gone  Johnny 
said: 

"I  don't  think  much  of  girls." 

"Why  not,  Johnny?"  I  asked. 

"They  are  no  good,  that's  all,"  he  said. 

"Don't  you  like  Nellie?     She  is  a  great 
chum  of  mine,"  I  said. 

"No,"  replied  Johnny.     "Her  eyes  are  too 
big  and  she  cries.     I  hate  people  that  slobber. " 

"Nellie  is  a  sensitive  little  thing,  and  you 
are  rough  with  her  Johnny,"  I  said. 

"Girls    are    no    good    around    business," 
argued  Johnny.     "Especially  that  kind." 

"Have  you  a  sister,  Johnny?"  I  asked. 

"No,  and  I  don't  want  any,"  said  my  little 
friend.     "  I  steer  clear  of  girls. " 

Just  then  Nellie  came  in  with  a  box  of  ice 
cream  I  had  sent  her  for. 

"Nellie  has  brought  us   some  icecream," 
I  said  to  Johnny. 

[2441 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

"Yes,"  he  replied,  "but  you're  the  guy  that 
paid  for  it. " 

"It  was  nice  of  Nellie  to  go  for  it,"  I  said. 

"Any  kid  would  go  for  ice  cream,"  said 
Johnny,  bound  not  to  give  in. 

We  divided  the  cream,  and  while  we  were 
eating  it  I  said: 

"In  a  few  years  I  might  grow  rich  and  in- 
stead of  this  rough  wood  floor  we  would  have 
a  lovely  carpet,  very,  very  thick.     The  win- 
dows instead  of  being  cracked  and  ugly  would 
be    of   beautiful  coloured  glass   with   lovely 
flowers  in  the  window  boxes.     We  would  have 
pictures  of  trees  and  sheep  and  brooks  on  the 
walls,  and    the    building    would  be  painted 
white,  with  green  blinds.     Instead  of  having 
ice  cream  once  a  week,  we  would  have  a  big 
dinner  every  day,  consisting  of  soup,  a  big 
steak,  delicious  fried  potatoes,  and  end  with 
chocolate  cake  and  ice  cream. " 
[245] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

I  stopped. 

"Wouldn't  that  be  lovely!"  said  Nellie, 
going  out  to  put  the  dishes  away. 

"It's  a  wonder  she  didn't  weep,"  said 
Johnny.  "  Girls  always  do  at  such  rot. " 

After  Nellie  had  gone,  Johnny  told  me  that 
the  boys  in  his  class  had  taken  a  vote  on  who 
would  be  elected  and  that  I  had  most  of  them. 

"I  seem  to  get  along  with  the  kids  all  right; 
better,  I  am  afraid,  than  I  do  with  the  grown- 
ups. How  is  that,  Johnny?"  I  asked. 

"Oh,"  he  said  sagely,  "you're  an  easy  guy 
for  the  kids;  they're  wise  to  you.  If  you've 
got  a  nickel,  any  kid  can  touch  you,  and  you 
don't  know  it.  They're  all  on.  There  isn't 
one  that  doesn't  know  you. " 

"Do  you  think  I  will  be  elected,  Johnny?" 
I  asked. 

"Sure,"  said  Johnny;  "you've  got  them 
sliding  for  bases. " 

[246] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

"How  and  why?'5 1  asked. 

"Well,"  said  Johnny,  rubbing  his  head, 
"you're  strong  with  the  kids,  which  tickles  the 
old  people,  and  then  you've  got  an  easy  way 
of  talking  with  people  that  makes  a  hit,  and 
you're  not  a  tight  wad. " 

"Anything  else?"  I  asked  in  curiosity. 

"Yes,"  said  Johnny.  "You're  a  swell  guy 
that  used  to  have  the  coin,  but  it  ain't  hurt 
you  any." 


[247] 


CHAPTER  XIX 

I    HADN'T  been   a  public  speaker   until 
I  came  to   Salem,   and   I   had   to   gain 
experience    as    I    went   along.     In   the 
beginning  of  the  campaign  I  used  to  read  my 
speeches,  and  I  always  felt  that  they  lacked 
something.     The  last  of  October  I  had  an 
experience  that  made  me  change  my  method. 
I  was  speaking  to  about  a  hundred  people 
in  a  hall  on  the  outskirts  of  the  city.     Among 
them  I  became  aware  of  a  man  of  loud  and 
decided  opinions  about  me,  who  informed  his 
neighbours  in  the  hall  that  he  had  come  "to 
hear  the  freak. "    He  meant  that  I  should  hear 
him,  and  I  did. 

The  chairman  introduced  me  for  a  speech 
of  fifteen  minutes,  and  I  started  to  read  my 
[248] 


THE     MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

speech,  when,  glancing  down,  I  saw  my  critic 
looking  very  dubious  at  my  remarks.  Down 
went  my  manuscript,  and  I  began  to  speak 
extemporaneously,  acquiring  an  energy  that  I 
had  never  known  before.  I  argued  my  case 
with  that  one  man.  The  room  was  as  still  as 
death  —  not  a  sound  excepting  my  voice.  I 
argued,  told  my  story,  my  reasons,  and  my 
remedy  to  that  man  —  that  one  man.  Finally 
I  saw  him  nod  his  head  as  I  spoke. 

All  at  once  I  shouted  at  him: 

"Don't  you  agree  with  me?" 

He  sprang  to  his  feet  and  yelled  back: 

"Damn  it,  yes!" 

I  rushed  out  of  the  hall;  I  had  spoken  two 
hours. 

Soon  everybody  was  inviting  me  to  speak; 
and  the  other  four  candidates  were  all  rushing 
around  speaking,  too. 

The  local  organization  decided  to  give  a 
[249] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

rally,  and  we  mayoralty  candidates  were  all 
put  on  the  platform  at  the  same  time. 

The  Good  Government  candidate,  Mr. 
Goodhue,  was  first.  He  devoted  himself  to 
explaining  how  his  ancestors  had  lived  and 
died  in  Salem  —  mostly  died. 

Billy  McSweeney  came  next.  He  was  one 
of  those  "from  the  Atlantic  to  the  Pacific" 
orators  who  throw  back  their  heads  and  talk 
into  the  sky.  The  gee-lorious  emblem  was  un- 
furled. 

Mayor  Hurley,  the  silk-hatted  friend  of  the 
people,  assured  the  audience  that  they  were  all 
good  fellows;  his  opponents  were  good  fellows; 
he  was  the  friend  of  all;  he  spoke  of  his  war 
record. 

Mr.  Pollock  then  told  of  the  labour  bills  he 
had  introduced  as  a  State  representative. 
Then  the  chairman  rose  and  said: 

"The  last  speaker  is  unknown.  His  name 
[  250  1 


THE  MAN  WHO  BUCKED  UP 
is  Howard,  and  he  comes  from  New  York. 
That's  all  he  tells  us.  But  we  Yankees  are  a 
cautious  people;  we  find  out  things  for  our- 
selves. Therefore,  gentlemen,  I  introduce  to 
you,  as  candidate  for  mayor,  Arthur  Howard, 
the  prodigal  son. " 

Very  slowly  I  came  forward.  I  waited  un- 
til the  room  was  quiet,  and  said: 

"Mr.  Chairman:  We  read  in  the  Good  Book 
that  the  prodigal  son  was  given  everything 
when  he  returned  home.  My  grandfather 
left  Salem  years  ago,  rich.  I,  his  grandson, 
now  return,  poor.  If  history  repeats  itself,  I 
should  be  given  the  best  you  have  —  namely, 
the  high  office  of  mayor. 

"Prodigal  sons  are  supposed  to  be  without 
relations,  and  their  birthdays  are  not  cele- 
brated. Strange  as  it  may  seem,  election  day 
is  my  birthday.  There  is  no  one  to  remember 
that  day  for  me,  or  to  give  me  a  present.  It  is 
[251] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

possible  for  you  all  to  do  a  kindly  act  without 
any  expense  attached.  I  therefore  ask  each 
one  to  give  me  a  present  that  day  —  a  vote 
for  mayor. " 

It  caught  the  crowd. 

I  was  swamped  with  invitations  to  speak. 
Every  club,  society,  and  association  wanted  to 
hear  me.  One  night  I  was  invited  to  preach  a 
sermon  at  the  Women's  Temperance  Associa- 
tion. My  opponents  laughed;  they  thought 
it  a  good  joke  on  me.  While  I  addressed  the 
women  they  could  talk  with  the  men,  and  men, 
they  reasoned,  had  the  votes.  I  was  told 
that  I  would  get  no  opportunity  to  mention 
politics  there. 

When  the  evening  came  around  I  appeared 
and  was  duly  introduced.  I  announced  as 
my  text,  the  following: 

"And  there  was  much  murmuring  among  the  people 
concerning  him,  for  some  said,  'He   is  a  good  man  ' 
[252] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

others  said,   'Nay,  he  deceiveth  the  people. '"  — St. 
John  vii.,  12. 

The  text  gave  me  a  chance  to  get  it  all  in. 

And  then  a  famous  drinking  club  invited 

me  to  speak.     Here  is  how  I  ended  my  speech: 

"I  am  told  that  I  must  avoid  the  subject  of  politics 
at  a  banquet  of  this  kind,  and  that  is  a  hard  thing  to 
do,  because  I  dream  politics  at  night,  have  a  political 
breakfast,  a  political  dinner,  and  a  political  supper. 
Far  be  it  from  me  to-night  to  say  anything  about  the 
campaign,  or  to  hint  at  anything  that  would  have  the 
effect  of  influencing  your  vote;  but  I  want  to  call  your 
attention  to  one  fact:  Everywhere  I  go  I  see  the 
number  2700.  We  sold  2700  newspapers  to-day;  I 
delivered  a  speech  to-night  before  I  came  here  that 
contained  2700  words;  a  trolley  car  that  I  saw  this 
morning  was  numbered  2700,  and  my  balance  in  the 
bank  to-night  is  2700.  Now  the  politicians  tell  us 
that  2700  votes  will  win  this  election.  If  I  keep  seeing 
2700  all  over,  can  you  blame  me  if  I  think  that  2700 
is  coming  to  me  somehow  or  other  on  election  day?  I 
figured  up  to-night  that  I  have  2650  votes.  There  are 
just  50  gentlemen  here  to-night.  Think  it  over." 
[253] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

Election  day  was  December  14th,  and  by 
December  1st  I  began  to  "hit  up  the  pace" 
still  more.  On  that  night  I  made  a  whirl- 
wind tour  in  an  automobile  and  made  twelve 
speeches  one  in  each  of  the  twelve  precincts 
of  the  city.  I  started  at  seven  o'clock  and 
ended  at  eleven.  The  night  was  dreadfully 
stormy;  it  rained,  it  snowed,  and  before  the 
tour  was  over  I  was  half  frozen.  I  received  a 
variety  of  letters  commenting  on  my  per- 
formance —  some  unfavourable,  more  favour- 
able. One  writer  said: 

Like  many  others,  I  was  interested  in  Mr.  Howard's 
whirlwind  tour  last  night.  When  I  saw  it  rain  I  did 
not  expect  he  would  go  the  rounds. 

When  Mr.  Howard  arrived  in  the  seventh  precinct, 
I  stood  by  his  automobile.  He  was  evidently  half 
frozen.  The  rain  was  pouring  down  on  him.  His 
teeth  chattered,  and  his  hands  were  blue  with  the  cold. 
I  admire  his  pluck  and  determination  to  keep  his  word 
despite  his  personal  discomfort,  and  I  believe  that  a 

[254] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

man  who  can  face  Tuesday's  storm  will  face  any  storm 
in  City  Hall  for  our  benefit. 

Another  man,  with  a  different  opinion, 
wrote : 

Editor  Howard: 

If  you  think  you  will  get  votes  by  the  speech  you 
gave  at  the  corner  of  Tremont  and  School  streets  last 
night,  you  will  never  get  to  be  mayor  of  Salem.  You 
are  rotten  as  a  speech-maker.  Will  you  publish  this? 

A  VOTER. 

My  pace  was  too  hot  for  the  other  four  can- 
didates. None  of  them  attempted  a  whirl- 
wind tour,  and  by  the  end  of  that  first  week  in 
December  they  were  pretty  well  tired  out.  I 
was  working  day  and  night,  speaking  and 
getting  out  the  Dispatch.  Often  I  slept  in  a 
chair  in  the  office  after  I  had  seen  the  paper  go 
to  press.  I  was  getting  very  thin,  but  I  felt 
well  enough.  My  voice  was  strong,  and  I 
did  not  feel  specially  tired. 
[255] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

But  I  was  continually  out  of  money.  We 
were  publishing  great  editions  of  the  news- 
paper; but  we  got  a  very  few  advertisements, 
and  my  force  had  to  be  steadily  increased 
during  the  campaign.  Our  receipts  did  not 
equal  the  expense.  If  it  hadn't  been  for  my 
father  and  Sanborn  and  Ed  Allen,  I  never 
could  have  pulled  through.  I  got  a  letter 
from  father  every  morning.  What  pleasant 
letters  they  were!  He  never  forgot  to  write 
me,  and  he  never  mentioned  the  past;  but  he 
always  warned  me  to  be  prepared  for  defeat, 
and  in  each  letter  there  was  a  clean  five-dollar 
bill.  That  money  went  immediately  into  the 
newspaper  and  the  campaign,  and  Sanborn 
and  Allen  added  what  they  could  spare  from 
their  own  pockets. 

We  needed  most  of  all  a  linotype  machine 
for  the  Dispatch.  I  had  written  the  Mergen- 
thaler  Company  offering  to  buy  one,  but  they 

[256] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

demanded  five  hundred  dollars  cash  down.  I 
was  "broke."  Sanborn  and  Ed  Allen  were 
meeting  the  pay-roll  for  me.  I  had  no  money, 
not  even  an  overcoat  —  only  the  suit  of 
clothes  I  had  on,  and  my  dress-suit.  A 
linotype  seemed  impossible. 

On  Wednesday,  the  week  before  election, 
three  men  called  —  a  liquor  dealers'  commit- 
tee. They  said  they  were  giving  each  candi- 
date two  hundred  and  fifty  dollars  as  a  con- 
tribution toward  a  campaign  fund.  I  took 
mine,  went  to  the  telegraph  company,  and  sent 
the  following  despatch: 

Just  wired  you  two  hundred  and  fifty  dollars.  If 
you  ship  a  machine  by  express  to-day  I  can  be  elected 

mayor  of  this  city  next  Tuesday. 

HOWARD. 

A  risk  —  yes!  They  might  wire  back: 
"Send  us  two  hundred  and  fifty  dollars  more; 
we'll  keep  this  on  account. " 

[257] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

But  they  didn't.  They  sent  the  machine 
by  express,  and  a  man  came  to  set  it  up.  Joe, 
my  Italian  man  of  all  work  and  bodyguard, 
drew  his  money  from  the  savings  bank  and 
paid  the  express  charges  —  fifty  dollars.  A 
loyal  crew  were  mine!  By  noon  the  next  day 
the  linotype  machine  was  running. 

But  now  the  Howard  Campaign  Fund  was 
exhausted.  We  could  not  raise  a  dollar  more. 
The  five  dollars  a  day  from  father  was  the  last 
little  thread  that  held  us  up,  and  the  week 
before  election  was  on. 

On  Tuesday  night  I  made  another  whirl- 
wind tour.  It  was  cold,  but  good  crowds 
came  out.  Having  no  overcoat,  I  padded  my 
undercoat  with  newspapers.  Did  I  catch 
cold?  No;  I  was  too  excited. 

On  Friday  two  untoward  things  happened. 
The  usual  letter  with  the  five-dollar  bill  came 
from  father,  but  the  handwriting  was  not  his. 
[258] 


THE  MAN  WHO  BUCKED  UP 
That  afternoon  there  was  a  split  between  my 
campaign  managers.  Sanborn  and  Ed  Allen 
disagreed  with  Curtis,  my  associate  editor, 
who  was  now  stumping  the  town  with  me.  I 
sided  with  Curtis;  and  Sanborn  and  Allen 
went  away  angry.  I  immediately  called  on 
Michael  Trainor,  a  strong  supporter  of  mine, 
president  of  the  A.  O.  H.  and  a  fine  speaker, 
and  made  him  campaign  manager. 

At  four  o'clock  it  was  bitter  cold.  We  had 
planned  a  whirlwind  tour.  I  had  to  go  to  bed 
and  send  for  a  doctor;  my  voice  was  almost 
gone.  The  doctor  poulticed  and  rubbed  my 
throat  until  half-past  six.  Then  I  dressed, 
and  at  seven  we  started  on  the  tour.  Trainor 
was  in  fine  voice,  and  Curtis  spoke  well;  but 
I  could  talk  only  two  minutes  at  a  time.  We 
made  every  stop  to  the  thirteenth,  and  last,  on 
schedule  time,  though  to  do  it  we  drove  our  au- 
tomobile a  good  part  of  the  way  on  two  wheels. 
[259] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

And  now  it  was  Saturday,  and  I  was  really 
ill.  My  weight  was  less  than  a  hundred 
pounds,  and  I  was  very  weak.  Coffee  and 
quinine  were  all  I  could  take:  the  sight  of  food 
disgusted  me.  I  could  not  sleep.  Yet  I  had 
never  been  so  calm  and  collected. 

Sanborn  and  Allen  came  in  again  that 
morning,  and  took  care  of  my  mail  and  saw 
my  callers.  The  mail  was  full  of  threatening 
letters,  and  from  that  time  on  when  I  went 
out  on  the  streets  I  was  always  accompanied 
by  two  members  of  my  committee.  Joe,  my 
Italian  pressman,  a  young  Goliath,  had 
watched  me  for  weeks.  My  friends  thought 
it  would  be  better  to  take  no  chances  on  an 
assault. 

After  supper  I  made  two  speeches  on  the 

streets,  and  became  chilled  to  the  bone.     At 

nine  o'clock  I  went  to  an  indoor  rally.     As 

soon  as  I  arrived  I  was  asked  to  speak,  and,  as 

[260] 


THE  MAN  WHO  BUCKED  UP 
usual,  got  completely  absorbed  in  my  topic. 
Suddenly  I  seemed  to  lose  my  grip;  my  voice 
got  thick,  my  head  swam,  and  I  started  for  the 
stage  door,  reeling.  Sanborn  and  Ed  Allen 
caught  me  as  I  fell,  and  helped  me  to  my 
boarding-house,  where  I  fell  exhausted  on  the 
bed,  and  went  to  sleep  with  my  clothes  on. 

Sunday  was  the  day  I  had  reserved  for  the 
French  district.  As  a  forerunner  I  printed  a 
complete  newspaper  in  French  in  which  I  not 
only  told  all  about  my  opponents  but  also  told 
what  I  had  done  in  Salem. 

Harry  Le  Brun  was  a  member  of  my  cam- 
paign committee.  He  stood  well  with  the 
French  people  and  was  president  of  one  of 
their  best  clubs.  We  started  right  after 
morning  church  and  went  the  rounds  of  the 
French  clubs.  They  will  tell  you  to-day  in 
Salem  that  I  spoke  French  at  all  of  those  clubs 
and  that  by  doing  so  I  got  a  number  of  their 
[261] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

votes.  I  talked  plain  English,  but  I  spoke 
very  slowly  so  all  could  understand.  All 
through  my  speeches  I  used  French  idioms 
and  occasionally  said  a  few  sentences  together 
in  French.  In  the  excitement  of  a  new  candi- 
date and  the  enthusiasm  over  hearing  their 
own  language,  they  assumed  that  I  spoke 
entirely  in  French.  The  total  number  of 
clubs  I  spoke  at  was  twenty-four.  Mr.  Le 
Brun  introduced  me  in  a  most  flattering  man- 
ner and  assured  all  the  audiences  that  I  could 
understand  them  when  they  spoke  even  if  I 
could  not  speak  their  language  fluently. 

May  I  go  ahead  of  my  story  a  little? 

When  the  returns  came  in  on  election  night, 
it  was  learned  that  we  five  candidates  divided 
the  French  vote  equally.  That  evening  I 
spoke  at  Trainer's  club.  All  Sunday  night  I 
tossed  in  my  bed  until  four  in  the  morning; 
then  I  arose  and  dressed,  and  sat  down  at  my 
[262] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

desk.  My  body  was  weary,  my  throat  raw, 
but  my  head  was  unusually  clear.  My  look- 
ing-glass told  me  the  story  of  my  exhaustion 

—  my  face  was  drawn,  my  cheeks  sunken, 
and  my  neck  looked  like  a  pipestem. 

I  sat  there  in  my  room,  thinking  over  that 
strange  year  of  my  life  which  I  had  just  passed 

—  my  bankruptcy  in  New  York,  the  assaults 
on  me,  the  days  in  jail,  starvation,  debts,  and 
one   continuance   grind   of  work.     And  yet, 
what  satisfactory  work  it  had  been!     How 
many  friends  I  had  made!    In  New  York  I 
had  spent  over  five  thousand  dollars  a  year  on 
myself  alone;  in  New  England  I  had  not  spent 
five  hundred  dollars.     But  that  did  not  keep 
me  from  making  friends.     It  is  not  what  a 
man  wears  or  spends,  it  is  how  he  acts  and 
what  he  is  that  counts  in  New  England. 

"I  wonder  if  I  can  be  elected?"  I  said  to 
myself,     "I  surely  will  get  a  good  vote;  and 
[*»] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

even  if  I  were  not  mayor,  that  would  be  worth 
while.  A  vote  of  a  thousand  would  be  some- 
thing to  be  proud  of.  It  would  make  father 
so  pleased.  That  in  itself  would  be  a  great 
comfort." 

There  was  a  letter  in  a  Boston  paper  that  I 
was  best  pleased  about: 

As  long  ago  as  last  July,  it  was  observed  that  How- 
erd  would  be  elected,  if  any  tricks  were  played  in  the 
courts.  Placing  the  Damon  case  before  the  Doyle 
case  made  it  look  as  though  Howard  had  been.  This 
city  is  large  enough  for  two  newspapers.  Why  should 
Howard  be  stopped  ?  He  never  printed  a  scandal,  and 
all  he  writes  is  in  good  nature,  and  apparently  true, 
as  we  have  had  no  denials  so  far.  The  people  here 
are  ready  for  a  change,  ready  for  a  leader,  and  he  has 
come  from  the  outside.  His  mind  is  right,  his  heart 
is  right,  and  his  whole  soul  is  in  his  work. 

I  wished  my  father  could  see  that!  I  had 
no  money,  not  even  sufficient  clothing;  but  — 
"his  mind  is  right,  his  heart  is  right,  and  his 

J 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

whole  soul  is  in  his  work. "    And  the  writer  of 
this  letter  stood  very  high  in  Salem. 

It  was  five  o'clock  and  I  was  at  my  office  — 
five  o'clock  on  Monday,  the  day  before  elec- 
tion. At  ten  o'clock  we  had  sold  out  our  entire 
edition.  The  newsboys  were  howling  for  more 
papers,  and  we  had  no  more  paper  to  print  on. 
It  was  up  to  me  to  devise  some  scheme  to 
keep  the  newsboys  from  selling  the  News  that 
afternoon.  The  idea  came.  I  ran  off  fifty 
big  cards  on  the  press.  They  read: 


IT'S  IN  THE  Am 
HOWARD 


I  sent  out  fifty  boys,  each  holding  aloft  one 
of  these  placards.  They  made  a  hit. 

The  one  thing  left  now  was  the  big  rally  that 
night.  We  had  engaged  the  large  Now  and 

[265] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

Then  Association  Hall.  We  were  to  reserve 
the  gallery  for  women  —  an  innovation.  We 
planned  to  make  it  a  striking  occasion  in 
every  way.  I  had  the  whole  day  in  which  to 
prepare  my  speech.  My  circle  of  backers  all 
came  in  for  one  last  conference.  It  looked 
good  for  me  in  every  ward.  After  some 
desultory  talk  they  all  went  away  except  Bill 
Sanborn. 

"I  was  never  interested  in  politics  before  in 
my  life,"  he  remarked. 

"Neither  was  I,"  I  answered. 

"Well,"  said  Bill,  "I'd  like  to  see  you  win 
—  not  only  for  your  own  sake,  but  your 
father's.  He  must  be  a  fine  old  man. " 

"He  certainly  is,"  said  Ed  Allen,  stepping 
back  into  the  room  again. 

"It  would  please  him,"  I  said,  "if  I  only 
got  five  hundred  votes. " 

"You  make  me  tired,"  said  Sanborn. 
[266] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

"You  are  elected,  sure.  The  other  candi- 
dates are  almost  crazy.  And,  when  you  are, 
I  am  going  over  to  New  York,  and  have  a  talk 
with  your  father,  and  tell  him  what  you've 
done  here. " 

They  went  down  the  stairs  together,  laugh- 
ing, and  I  turned  back  into  my  little  office. 

Johnny  came  running  in. 

"Good  morning,  Mayor,"  he  said. 

"Hello,  Johnny.  What's  on  your  mind?" 
I  said. 

"Nothing;  only  a  guy  gave  me  this  telegram 
for  you,"  said  Johnny,  thrusting  it  into  my 
hand.  I  tore  it  open  and  read: 

Arthur  Howard,  Salem,  Mass.:  Your  father  passed 
away  Sunday  night.  Funeral  Wednesday  morning. 

HOWARD  &  COMPANY. 

*  ****** 

I  had  walked  five  miles.  I  was  not  the 
least  tired,  but  my  head  seemed  on  fire.  I 

[267] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

could  not  get  my  thoughts  together.  All  at 
once  I  found  myself  coming  in  out  of  the 
country  road  to  the  city.  The  children  were 
coming  out  of  the  schoolhouse  across  the 
street,  and  I  waved  my  hand  at  them.  Nellie 
Bates  came  running  out  of  the  crowd. 

"It  was  my  birthday  yesterday,"  said 
Nellie,  as  we  walked  on  together. 

"How  old  were  you?" 

"I'm  twelve." 

"You  are  a  very  wise  little  lady  for  twelve 
years  of  age. " 

"I  am  wise  enough,"  she  answered  quickly, 
"to  know  you  are  going  to  be  elected  mayor 
to-morrow. " 

"Don't  be  too  sure,"  I  said. 

We  walked  on  in  silence  for  a  block  or  two. 

"Mother  telephoned  me  at  school,"  she 
said. 

"Anything  wrong?"  I  asked. 
[268] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED     UP> 
"She  told   me   about  your  father,"   said 
Nellie. 

We  still  walked  on  —  in  silence. 
"I  am  so  sorry"  —  she  was  crying.  "I 
am  so  sorry,"  she  started  again.  "Mother 
says  you  always  spoke  of  him  in  your  speeches. 
Mother  says  you  must  have  been  very  fond  of 
each  other." 

We  turned  into  the  main  street. 
"You  don't  want  me  to  talk  about  your 
father,  do  you?"  she  asked. 
"Yes;  that's  all  right." 
"If  my  dad  died,  I  would  cry,"  said  the 
child.     "All  you  do  is  to  stare.     If  my  dad 
died,  I  would  never  stop  crying." 

We  turned  into  the  Dispatch  office,  and 
went  to  my  little  room.  Bill  and  Ed  stood  up 
as  we  came  in.  I  lit  a  cigar,  and  the  three  of 
us  smoked  in  silence. 

"How  about  to-night?"  said  Bill  at  last. 
[269] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

"I  can't  do  it,"  I  said  shortly. 

"Then  you're  defeated,"  said  Ed. 

"I  don't  care,"  I  replied.  "Let  Trainor 
and  Curtis  speak.  I  cannot. " 

"What  was  Mr.  Howard  going  to  do  to- 
night?" asked  Nellie. 

No  one  answered  her. 

"What  do  they  want  you  to  do?"  she  per- 
sisted. 

"  I  was  to  speak  at  the  Now  and  Then  Hall," 
I  said,  "but  I  can't  do  that  now." 

"Hundreds  will  be  disappointed,"  said 
Bill. 

"I  can't  do  that,  Bill,"  I  said.  "I  really 
cannot. " 

"If  you  don't  speak,  Mr.  Howard,  every- 
body will  go  to  hear  the  others, "  said  Nellie. 

"That's  it  exactly,"  said  Bill  and  Ed  to- 
gether. 

I  went  out  alone  to  my  boarding-house. 
[270] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 
At  half-past  seven  Bill  Sanborn  and  Ed  Allen 
came  to  my  room. 

"I  have  got  a  carriage  outside,"  said  Bill. 

"Wear  your  dress-suit,"  said  Ed.      'That 
suit  you've  got  on  is  in  the  last  stages  of 

decay. " 

I  got  into  my  evening  clothes,  and  we  went 
to  the  hall.  Trainor  was  introducing  Curtis 
as  I  came  in  the  rear  way.  I  sat  in  an  ante- 
room with  Bill  and  Ed  and  the  doctor,  who 
was  spraying  my  throat  for  me  so  I  could  speak. 

Curtis  was  very  brief  —  told  of  my  father's 
death,  and  asked  the  indulgence  of  the  au- 
dience for  me.  Trainor  then  introduced  me, 
but  I  did  not  go  on  to  the  platform  until  he 
spoke  my  name.  There  were  sixteen  hundred 
people  in  the  hall.  I  was  given  a  great 
reception. 

I  began  in  a  low  voice.     I  did  not  know 
what  to  say  at  first,  but  I  soon  started  a  frank 

[271] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

story  of  my  life  in  Salem.  I  spoke  of  my 
failure  in  New  York,  my  fight  to  get  a  foot- 
hold, the  misery  and  effort  and  discourage- 
ments of  that  busy  year.  You  could  hear  a 
pin  drop  as  I  went  on.  It  was  nine  o'clock, 
half-past  nine,  almost  ten  o'clock.  No  one 
stirred.  As  the  clock  struck  ten,  I  realized 
I  must  finish.  I  came  close  to  the  front,  and 
began  to  plead  with  my  audience. 

"We  read  in  the  Good  Book,"  I  said, 
"where  it  says:  'Thou  hast  been  faithful  over 
a  few  things,  I  will  make  thee  ruler  over  many 
things';  and  again,  we  read  those  beautiful 
words  of  Ruth:  "Thy  people  shall  be  my 
people.'  I  plead  with  you  for  my  election, 
for  the  chance  to  show  you  what  I  can  do.  I 
have  worked  hard  —  had  my  successes,  had 
my  disappointments. " 

My  voice  broke,  and  I  looked  around  help- 
lessly. 

[272] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

Trainor  leaned  forward. 
"Go  on,  go  on!"  he  said. 
With  a  great  effort,  I  went  on  again: 
"There  are  friends  and  relatives  in  New 
York  who  are  disappointed  in  me.     I  came 
to  Salem  a  year  ago  to  start  life  anew.     All 
that  I  ask  is  that  you  give  me  a  chance,  so 
that  those  who  knew  me,  those  who  liked  me, 
and  those  who  loved  me  in  my  distant  home 
will  say:  'He  has  made  good." 

I  motioned  with  my  hand  that  I  was 
through.  The  house  was  still  as  death ;  a  num- 
ber of  the  women  in  the  gallery  were  crying. 

And  then  it  came  — from  pit  to  gallery  - 
cheer  after  cheer  after  cheer.  I  walked  off 
the  stage.  My  muscles  seemed  to  contract, 
and  everything  grew  dim.  The  doctor  picked 
up  a  tumbler  of  water  and  dashed  it  in  my 
face.  I  burst  out  laughing,  and  laughed  and 
laughed  and  laughed. 

[273] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

It  was  midnight  when  I  reached  my  board- 
ing-house and  got  to  bed.  At  four  o'clock  I 
awoke.  Somehow  I  felt  that  there  was  some 
one  outside  my  door.  I  opened  it,  and  saw 
my  landlady  stretched  back  in  a  chair,  asleep. 
Good  old  soul  —  how  she  had  worried  over  me 
through  the  campaign! 

At  six  o'clock  I  was  called.  Sanborn  and 
Ed  Allen  had  come  for  me  in  an  automobile. 
They  took  me  to  vote  —  my  first  vote  in 
Massachusetts.  Then  we  rounded  up  the 
polling-places,  and  finally  we  went  for  a  spin 
in  the  country.  We  had  lunch  somewhere,  but 
I  could  not  eat.  At  four  o'clock  we  went  to 
Link  Allen's  house  to  get  the  returns.  About 
a  dozen  of  the  faithful  were  there;  a  supper 
was  laid  out,  and  a  punch-bowl  appeared  on 
the  table. 

One  by  one  the  precincts  came  in.  The 
swing  was  clearly  in  my  direction.  Ten  pre- 

[274] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

cincts  were  in.  I  had  a  lead  that  could  not  be 
overcome.  The  punch-bowl  was  surrounded; 
snatches  of  song,  jocular  talk,  and  cheers  arose 
around  it.  I  sat  alone  in  a  corner,  with  my 
tables  of  election  figures.  The  messengers 
came  and  went;  the  telephone  jangled  inces- 
santly. The  street  outside  was  filling  up  with 
people. 

Precinct  eleven  came;  I  carried  it.  Pre- 
cinct twelve  arrived;  I  carried  that.  I  had 
won!  I,  Arthur  Howard,  bankrupt  and 
stranger,  had  been  made  chief  executive  of 
one  of  the  oldest  and  most  conservative  cities 
in  the  United  States,  in  less  than  fourteen 
months  after  my  arrival. 

Bill  Sanborn  and  Ed  Allen  and  Heman  Cur- 
tis were  dancing  up  and  down  before  me  like 
mad.  The  reporters  of  the  big  Boston  papers 
came  in  and  asked  for  interviews.  Crowds 
poured  into  the  house.  A  band  came  playing 

[275] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

down  the  street,  and  the  crowd  outside  were 
crying,  "Howard,  Howard,  Howard!"  Then 
some  one  got  my  overcoat  —  no,  it  was  not  my 
overcoat.  The  mayor-elect  of  Salem  had  no 
overcoat.  It  was  some  one's  overcoat,  any- 
way. I  was  led  out  of  the  house;  every- 
body was  shaking  hands  with  me.  I  was  in  an 
auto;  so  were  Ed  Allen  and  Sanborn  and  Link 
Allen;  Johnny  was  on  the  step. 

"Bow,  you  fool  —  take  off  your  hat!"  said 
Link  Allen,  punching  me. 

People  were  everywhere.  Windows  flew 
open.  We  started  off.  Ahead  of  us  a  band 
was  playing,  "See,  the  conquering  hero 
comes. "  It  sounded  ten  miles  off  to  me. 

More  cheers,  more  people.  I  never  was  so 
confused  in  my  life. 

The  streets  were  full  of  children.  We 
passed  the  orphan  asylum.  I  thought  such 
institutions  closed  at  nine  o'clock;  yet  all  the 

[276] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

children  were  in  the  windows,  cheering.  Be- 
hind the  automobile  came  high-school  boys, 
with  locked  arms,  yelling:  "Howard,  Howard, 
Mayor  Howard!" 

And  now  we  swing  into  the  old  political 
centre  —  Town  House  Square.  The  auto- 
mobile stops,  and,  forced  by  the  singing  of  the 
crowd,  the  band  has  changed  its  tune.  Hun- 
dreds and  thousands  of  voices  have  caught 
the  words: 

"We'll  hang  Robin  Damon  to  a  sour  apple  tree." 

Johnny  pulled  my  coat.  "It  beats  the 
circus,  don't  it?"  he  yelled  in  my  ear. 

Round  the  old  square  we  go,  the  place  one 
solid  mass  of  humanity.  I  am  bowing  right 
and  left.  And  now  we  are  in  the  grimy  old 
railroad  station.  I  am  helped  out,  and  al- 
most swamped  by  the  crowd.  Trainor  has 
one  arm,  Link  the  other,  Bill  Sanborn  strides 

[277] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

forward,  and  lifts  me  like  a  child  into  the 
back  platform  of  the  train.  I  did  not  know  a 
train  was  there. 

Everybody  is  yelling,  "Speech!" 

I  have  lost  the  power  of  speech:  I  cannot 
even  think.  Suddenly  silence.  Trainor  is 
speaking.  I  don't  understand  one  word  he  is 
saying,  except  "Thank  you." 

And  now  I  am  alone.  The  crowd  is  yelling. 
Above  them  hats  shoot  up  into  the  air,  a  jolt, 
and  we  move.  Suddenly  I  find  my  voice: 

"Oh,  you  Salem!  "I  yell. 

Back  came  ten  thousand  voices:  "Oh,  you 
New  York." 

I  wave  my  hat. 

I  have  no  ticket.  Yes,  I  have;  it's  in  my 
hand.  I  remembered  Ed  Allen  gave  me  some- 
thing, and  I  still  have  on  somebody's  over- 
coat. And  now  we  are  moving  fast,  and 
leaving  Salem.  I  turn  and  enter  the  car. 

[278] 


THE    MAN    WHO    BUCKED    UP 

My  thoughts  turn  from  the  noise  and  glare  to 
the  silent  scene  which  will  next  meet  me  —  to 
my  father  lying  dead  in  New  York. 

There  are  only  a  few  passengers  —  a  couple 
of  travelling  men.  In  front  of  them  are  Ned 
Bates  and  his  wife.  Thank  Heaven  I  am 
alone.  I  sink  wearily  into  a  seat. 

But  I  am  not  alone.  There  is  some  one 
beside  me  —  some  one  small,  some  one  with 
big  eyes,  smiling  happily.  Nellie  Bates  is 
sitting  by  me.  Our  eyes  meet  —  her  smile 
fades  away.  She  turns,  in  her  impetuous 
way,  throws  her  arms  around  my  neck,  and 
—  well,  we  cried,  both  of  us,  as  if  our  hearts 
would  break. 


THE  END 


[279] 


THE  COUNTRY  LIFE  PRESS 
GARDEN  CITY,  N.  Y. 


A     000  043  725     1 


